Tim O'Brien, "Chinquapin Hunting/Sugar in the Gourd"

Transcontinental.

On this day in 1869, a golden spike was driven at Promontory, Utah, marking the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in the United States.

The BBC's presentation of The Line ...

Eddie Vedder, "Just Breathe"

Mechanism.

Hearing poetry starts the psychological mechanism of prayer.

Theodore Roethke

Wagner, Tristan und Isolde

The Chicago Symphony performs the Prelude and Liebestod, directed by Sir Georg Solti ...

Be.

Curtis, Crow Warriors, 1908

WOLVES of HEAVEN

It had been very hot for three weeks
so I worked well into a cool night
when at three a.m. a big thunderstorm hit.
I went out in the yard naked and sat
at the picnic table for a rain bath
careful about the rattlesnake on the sidewalk.
The sky drowned the mosquitoes
feeding on me. The lightning was relentless
and lit up the valley so I could see
the ghosts who had me ill this past year.
Then I was part of a battle from two
hundred years ago when the Cheyenne
from the east attacked the Absaroka,
the Crow, in this valley. A group of the Cheyenne
were massaum, the wolves of heaven,
warriors who painted themselves solid yellow.
One on a black horse stopped at our gate
but decided not to kill me.
I want to be a yellow wolf of heaven.
They disappeared into the lightning.

Jim Harrison

Elgar, Variations on an Original Theme for Orchestra, Op. 36, "Enigma"

Sir Georg Solti leads the London Philharmonic in Variation IX, "Nimrod" ...

Happy birthday, Barrie.

J.M. Barrie was born on this day in 

To Peter's bewilderment he discovered that every fairy he met fled from him. A band of workmen, who were sawing down a toadstool, rushed away, leaving their tools behind them. A milkmaid turned her pail upside down and hid in it. Soon the Gardens were in an uproar. Crowds of fairies were running this away and that, asking each other stoutly, who was afraid, lights were extinguished, doors barricaded, and from the grounds of Queen Mab's palace came the rubadub of drums, showing that the royal guard had been called out. A regiment of Lancers came charging down the Broad Walk, armed with holly-leaves, with which they jog the enemy horribly in passing. Peter heard the little people crying everywhere that there was a human in the Gardens after Lock-out Time, but he never thought for a moment that he was the human. He was feeling stuffier and stuffier, and more and more wistful to learn what he wanted done to his nose, but he pursued them with the vital question in vain; the timid creatures ran from him, and even the Lancers, when he approached them up the Hump, turned swiftly into a side-walk, on the pretence that they saw him there.

Despairing of the fairies, he resolved to consult the birds, but now he remembered, as an odd thing, that all the birds on the weeping beech had flown away when he alighted on it, and though that had not troubled him at the time, he saw its meaning now. Every living thing was shunning him. Poor little Peter Pan, he sat down and cried, and even then he did not know that, for a bird, he was sitting on his wrong part. It is a blessing that he did not know, for otherwise he would have lost faith in his power to fly, and the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it. The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.

Now, except by flying, no one can reach the island in the Serpentine, for the boats of humans are forbidden to land there, and there are stakes round it, standing up in the water, on each of which a bird-sentinel sits by day and night. It was to the island that Peter now flew to put his strange case before old Solomon Caw, and he alighted on it with relief, much heartened to find himself at last at home, as the birds call the island.

J.M. Barrie, from Peter Pan, Chapter 14, "The White Bird"

CONNECT

Turning.

Collins, Valley Path, Virginia, 2005

The BRIGHT FIELD

I have seen the sun break through

to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth

once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

R.S. Thomas

Echo & The Bunnymen, "The Game"

Born under Mars
With Jupiter rising
Fallen from stars
That lit my horizon

Along.

SPEECH to the YOUNG SPEECH to the PROGRESS-TOWARD (AMONG THEM NORA and HENRY III)

Say to them,

say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"Even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night."
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.
Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.

Gwendolyn Brooks

Thank You, Jessica.

Bizet, Carmen

Gustavo Dudamel directs the Berlin Philharmonic, featuring Emmanuel Pahud, flute, performing the Intermezzo ...

Sing.

A COURSE in CREATIVE WRITING

They want a wilderness with a map—
but how about errors that give a new start?—
or leaves that are edging into the light?—
or the many places a road can’t find?

Maybe there’s a land where you have to sing
to explain anything: you blow a little whistle
just right and the next tree you meet is itself.
(And many a tree is not there yet.)

Things come toward you when you walk.
You go along singing a song that says
where you are going becomes its own
because you start. You blow a little whistle—

And a world begins under the map.

William Stafford

Light.

The TABLES TURNED

Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books; 

Or surely you'll grow double: 

Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks; 

Why all this toil and trouble? 

The sun above the mountain's head, 

A freshening lustre mellow 

Through all the long green fields has spread, 

His first sweet evening yellow. 

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife: 

Come, hear the woodland linnet, 

How sweet his music! on my life, 

There's more of wisdom in it. 

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings! 

He, too, is no mean preacher: 

Come forth into the light of things, 

Let Nature be your teacher. 

She has a world of ready wealth, 

Our minds and hearts to bless— 

Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, 

Truth breathed by cheerfulness. 

One impulse from a vernal wood 

May teach you more of man, 

Of moral evil and of good, 

Than all the sages can. 

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; 

Our meddling intellect 

Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:— 

We murder to dissect. 

Enough of Science and of Art; 

Close up those barren leaves; 

Come forth, and bring with you a heart 

That watches and receives. 

William Wordsworth 

Cream, "N.S.U."

Study.

Rick Bass' remembrance of his friend, Jim Harrison ...

He could talk, for sure, and did, but I loved most watching him listen. People brought him things — fine bottles of wine, great cuts of meat, wonderful cheeses — and he did not dislike this in the least. There are restaurants in Paris, whether small cafes or elegant dining rooms, adorned with a black-and-white photo of a middle-aged squinting one-eyed fat man. We ate in elegant restaurants with long white tablecloths in Aix-en-Provence, and at outside tables along sidewalks, on porches and patios. He loved L'Hôtel de Suède, where a horned owl lived in the heart of Paris.

Whether in one of those places, or in Manhattan at Elaine's (always the lamb), from the minute he sat down he was ready to eat. He would study the wine menu at some length but would order a bowl of olives immediately. In France, he liked that dogs came into restaurants and sat calmly at their owners' feet.

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Excellent.

But when I am alone in the half light of the canyon all existence seems to fade to a being with my soul and memories. And the sounds of the Big Black Foot River and a four count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

I am haunted by waters.

An excellent movie.

Depeche Mode, "Enjoy the Silence"

Critical.

For the Squibs in The Stoa ...

Once.

Every man should pull a boat over a mountain once in his life.

Werner Herzog

Imagination.

Magic.

Evening: to walk into my house is to walk into dawn, into color, into music, into perfume, into magic, into harmony.

Anaïs Nin

We.

So who are we? We are the life-force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world.Right here, right now, I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere, where we are. I am the life-force power of the universe. I am the life-force power of the 50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form, at one with all that is. Or, I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere, where I become a single individual, a solid. Separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor: intellectual neuroanatomist. These are the "we" inside of me. Which would you choose? Which do you choose? And when? I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner-peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world, and the more peaceful our planet will be. And I thought that was an idea worth spreading.

Julieta Venegas.

Thank You, Jessica.

Full.

R.E.M., "Undertow"

Mukwa.

Bear (Mukwa) medicine.

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Happy birthday, Grant.

Ulysses S. Grant was born on this day in 1822.

I do not believe I ever would have the courage to fight a duel. If any man should wrong me to the extent of my being willing to kill him, I would not be willing to give him the choice of weapons with which it should be done, and of the time, place and distance separating us, when I executed him.

Ulysses S. Grant

Robert Plant, "Turn It Up"

Notice.

I had stopped my chair at that exact place, coming out, because right there the spice of wisteria that hung around the house was invaded by the freshness of apple blossoms in a blend that lifted the top of my head. As between those who notice such things and those who don't, I prefer those who do.

Wallace Stegner

R.E.M., "Perfect Circle"

Romping.

Beard, Bears in the Watermelon Patch, 1871

Is that dance slowing in the mind of man
That made him think the universe could hum?
The great wheel turns its axle when it can;
I need a place to sing, and dancing-room,
And I have made a promise to my ears
I’ll sing and whistle romping with the bears.

Theodore Roethke

Stravinsky, Violin Concerto in D

Viktoria Mullova performs the Capriccio with the Berlin Philharmonic, directed by Gustavo Dudamel ...

Colin Hay, "There's Water Over You"

Our.

The act of true reading is in its very essence democratic. Consider the nature of what happens when we read a book - and I mean, of course, a work of literature, not an instruction manual or a textbook - in private, unsupervised, un-spied-on, alone. It isn’t like a lecture: it’s like a conversation. There’s a back-and-forthness about it. The book proposes, the reader questions, the book responds, the reader considers. We bring our own preconceptions and expectations, our own intellectual qualities, and our limitations, too, our own previous experiences of reading, our own temperament, our own hopes and fears, our own personality to the encounter.

Philip Pullman

Unusual.

When we hear the sound of the pine trees on a windy day, perhaps the wind is just blowing, and the pine tree is just standing in the wind. That is all that they are doing. But the people who listen to the wind in the tree will write a poem, or will feel something unusual. That is, I think, the way everything is.

Shunryu Suzuki

CONNECT

Flows.

From the sound of cool waters heard through
the green boughs
Of the fruit-bearing trees,
And the rustling breeze,
Deep sleep, as a trance, down over me flows.

Sappho 

Yonder.

A DAY of SUNSHINE

O gift of God!  O perfect day:

Whereon shall no man work, but play;
Whereon it is enough for me,
Not to be doing, but to be!
Through every fibre of my brain,
Through every nerve, through every vein,
I feel the electric thrill, the touch
Of life, that seems almost too much.
I hear the wind among the trees
Playing celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.
And over me unrolls on high
The splendid scenery of the sky,
Where through a sapphire sea the sun
Sails like a golden galleon,
Towards yonder cloud-land in the West,
Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,
Whose steep sierra far uplifts
Its craggy summits white with drifts.
Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms
The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms!
Blow, winds! and bend within my reach
The fiery blossoms of the peach!
O Life and Love! O happy throng
Of thoughts, whose only speech is song!
O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free? 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Surrendered.

Be helpless and dumbfounded,
unable to say yes or no.

Then a stretcher will come
from grace to gather us up.

We are too dull-eyed to see the beauty.
If we say "Yes we can," we'll be lying.

If we say "No, we don't see it,"
that "No" will behead us
and shut tight our window into spirit.

So let us not be sure of anything,
beside ourselves, and only that, so
miraculous beings come running to help.

Crazed, lying in a zero-circle, mute,
we will be saying finally,
with tremendous eloquence, "Lead us."

When we've totally surrendered to that beauty,
we'll become a mighty kindness.

Rumi

Happy birthday, Audubon.

Audubon, Pileated Woodpecker, n/d

John James Audubon was born on this day in 1785.

It would be difficult for me to say in what part of our extensive country I have not met with this hardy inhabitant of the forest. Even now, when several species of our birds are becoming rare, destroyed as they are, either to gratify the palate of the epicure, or to adorn the cabinet of the naturalist, the Pileated Woodpecker is every where to be found in the wild woods, although scarce and shy in the peopled districts.

Wherever it occurs it is a permanent resident, and, like its relative the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, it remains pretty constantly in the place which it has chosen after leaving its parents. It is at all times a shy bird, so that one can seldom approach it, unless under cover of a tree, or when he happens accidentally to surprise it while engaged in its daily avocations. When seen in a large field newly brought into tillage, and yet covered with girdled trees, it removes from one to another, cackling out its laughter-like notes, as if it found delight in leading you a wild-goose chase in pursuit of it. 

John James Audubon, from The Birds of North America (Amsterdam Edition)

CONNECT

Bach, Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001

Viktoria Mullova performs the Siciliana and the Presto ...

Wander.

There are more like us. All over the world
There are confused people, who can’t remember
The name of their dog when they wake up, and people
Who love God but can’t remember where

He was when they went to sleep. It’s
All right. The world cleanses itself this way.
A wrong number occurs to you in the middle
Of the night, you dial it, it rings just in time

To save the house. And the second-story man
Gets the wrong address, where the insomniac lives,
And he’s lonely, and they talk, and the thief
Goes back to college. Even in graduate school,

You can wander into the wrong classroom,
And hear great poems lovingly spoken
By the wrong professor. And you find your soul,
And greatness has a defender, and even in death you’re safe.

Robert Bly

Peace.

Richardson & Cox, Mutability of Literature, 1864

I have sought everywhere for peace, but I have found it not, save in a little nook, and in a little book.

Thomas a Kempis

Imagine.

I like an empty wall because I can imagine what I like on it.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Legend.

Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent explores the remarkable life of Jeremiah Tower, one of the most controversial and influential figures in the history of American gastronomy. Tower began his career at the renowned Chez Panisse in Berkeley in 1972, becoming a pioneering figure in the emerging California cuisine movement. After leaving Chez Panisse, due in part to a famously contentious relationship with founder Alice Waters, Tower went on to launch his own legendary Stars Restaurant in San Francisco. Stars was an overnight sensation and soon became one of America’s top-grossing U.S. restaurants. After several years, Tower mysteriously walked away from Stars and then disappeared from the scene for nearly two decades, only to resurface in the most unlikely of places: New York City’s fabled but troubled Tavern on the Green. There, he launched a journey of self-discovery familiar to anyone who has ever imagined themselves to be an artist. Featuring interviews by Mario Batali, Anthony Bourdain, Ruth Reichl and Martha Stewart, this delicious documentary tells the story of the rise and fall of America’s first celebrity chef, whose brash personality and culinary genius has made him a living legend.

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Humility.

It’s a universal law — intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Thank you, Charlie.

Escape.

His early failure had released him from any felt obligation to think along institutional lines and his thoughts were already independent to a degree few people are familiar with. He felt that institutions such as schools, churches, governments, and political organizations of every sort all tended to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions. He came to see his early failure as a lucky break, an accidental escape from a trap that had been set for him, and he was very trap-wary about institutional truths for the remainder of his time.

Robert M. Pirsig, from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Pretty.

When journalists praise new buildings, they often use words like "cutting edge" and "innovative," which are more appropriate for science rather than an art form. This has led to a situation where the word "brutalist" is a compliment, which is crazy -- how can being "brutal" be in any way praiseworthy? I would like to see words like "charming," "delightful," and, dare I say it, "pretty," be applied to architecture.

Francis Terry

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Fund.

Scholars, amateur scientists, aspiring men of letters — just about anyone with intellectual ambition in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was likely to keep a commonplace book. In its most customary form, “commonplacing,” as it was called, involved transcribing interesting or inspirational passages from one’s reading, assembling a personalized encyclopedia of quotations. It was a kind of solitary version of the original web logs: an archive of interesting tidbits that one encountered during one’s textual browsing. The great minds of the period — Milton, Bacon, Locke — were zealous believers in the memory-enhancing powers of the commonplace book. There is a distinct self-help quality to the early descriptions of commonplacing’s virtues: in the words of one advocate, maintaining the books enabled one to “lay up a fund of knowledge, from which we may at all times select what is useful in the several pursuits of life.”

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Queequeging.

They call it Queequegging.

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