Golden rule days . . .

Thursday, April 23, 2026. It's Thor's day . . . Strong, gusty Southerlies are in the forecasts for Green Country and Tulseytown. A cloudy day in the upper 70's with slight rain chances increasing to likely thunderstorms tonight.

Today in 1635, Boston Latin School, the first public school in the United States, was founded. It is still in existence.

Playwright and poet William Shakespeare was born on this day in 1594 Stratford-upon-Avon, England.

Yesterday was the birth date of the poet Louise Glück. Born in 1943 New York City, she was a U.S. Poet Laureate, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize laureate among many other accolades. Her poetry often confronted many difficult human conditions within award winning lyricism. Her autobiography was published by the Nobel Prize committee.

In 1984 researchers reported they found the virus that causes AIDS; the infectious agent was later named HIV. Over the decades, relentless research has turned despair into hope, transforming HIV/AIDS from a fatal illness into a manageable chronic condition.

What's he sorry for? – Robert Reich, The Bigot Says He's Sorry, substack 4.23.26

Physicist Max Planck was born today in 1858 Kiel, Germany. He originated quantum theory.

The Academy Award and Cannes Palme d'Or filmmaker, documentarian, author, and political activist Michael Moore is 71 today, born in 1954, Flint, Michigan.

And its the birthdate of Roy Orbison The singer-songwriter-balladeer of loneliness and heartache with among the most operatic voices in all of rock music was born in 1936, Vernon, Texas.

Only the lonely have explored the depths of crying.

Ten Years Later

. . . one small thing

I’ve learned these years,

how to be alone,

and at the edge of aloneness

how to be found by the world.

– David Whyte, “Ten Years Later,” from The House of Belonging. Many Rivers Press. Revised edition, 2026.

The search for different pathways in the world is but the search for different forms of truth. And this would keep the truth from being reached. To search in this way is to assume you have an unmet need. Follow The Way. It is beneath your step in each and this instant.

A toast: To the grass . . .

Wednesday, April 22, 2026. It's Odin' day … strong Southerlies continue to maintain cloudy skies over Green Country and TulseyTown and an afternoon in the low 70's.

Today is EARTH DAY.

The modern and postmodern selves largely live in a world of their own construction and react for or against human-made ideas. While calling ourselves intelligent, we’ve lost touch with the natural world. – Fr. Richard Rohr, “Soul and the Natural World,” Meditations, from The Center for Action and Meditation.

Given the staggering technological power we have acquired, stewardship is humanity’s de facto relationship to earth at this point. To work, stewardship needs to be based on the non-anthropocentric assumption of fundamental kinship between human and non-human, an assumption that must exist before question and argument, shaping experience and action: A vision, as we have begun to see, of Paleolithic and ancient Chinese cultures. Only that will allow us to value earth and its individual life-forms in and of themselves, to value their own self-realization as we do our own. – David Hinton , Wild Mind, Wild Earth: Our Place in the Sixth Extinction, Shambhala, 2022.

Mindful

Oh, good scholar, I say to myself / how can you help but grow wise / with such teachings as these –

the untrimmable light of the world / the ocean's shine / the prayers that are made of grass?

– Mary Oliver, “Mindful” in Why I Wake Up Early, Beacon Press, 2004.

There is an unmistakable feeling that the wheels are coming off the MAGA bus. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American.

A rather impressive group share their birth's today.

One of the world’s most influential philosophers, Immanuel Kant, was born in 1724, Königsberg, Prussia [now Kaliningrad, Russia].

Vladimir Lenin born in 1870, Simbirsk, Russia.

Robert Oppenheimer was born in 1904, New York City.

Jack Nicholson is 89 today. Among the foremost film actors, he was born in 1937, Neptune, New Jersey,

And, yesterday was Patty LuPone's 77th Birthday. Born in 1949, Northport, New York. Without a doubt, one of Stephen Sondiheim's favorate intepreters, toasting “The Ladies Who Lunch,” on The Late Show.

Oozing with promise . . .

Tuesday, April 21, 2026. It's Tiw's day . . . Gusty Southerlies are to bring clouds to TulseyTown this afternoon. A cool 73º is in the forecast.

The longest reigning monarch in British history, Elizabeth II was born on this day in 1926, London, England.

It's the birthdate of Max Weber, born in 1864, Erfurt, Germany. The sociologist and political economist is best known for his thesis of the “Protestant ethic,” relating Protestantism to capitalism, and for his ideas on bureaucracy.

Novelist Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre) was born on this day in 1816 Thornton, Yorkshire, England.

And, today is also the birthdate of naturalist John Muir, born in 1838 Dunbar, Scotland. Earth Day is tomorrow.

Trump's aides have been keeping him out of the room as they receive Iran updates, simply telling him what was going on at important moments. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American.

We're seeing only a fraction of Trump's corruption. He's “classifying” most of it. – Miles Taylor, Defiance, 4.20.26

These are potent times, oozing with promise for a revolution of our collective soul. Patriarchal structures are losing their 5,000-year-old grip on our spiritual imagination. In their place, timeless feminine wisdom is flowering, spreading its intoxicating fragrance and ripening into vital nourishment for people of all genders. This female-shaped transmission activates our connection with the earth as a beloved relative, reminds us that we belong to each other, and eradicates the very concept of otherness. – Mirabai Starr

A Walk

My eyes already touch the sunny hill,

going far ahead of the road I have begun.

So are we grasped by what we cannot grasp;

it has its inner light, even from a distance –

and we are changed, even if we do not reach it,

into something else, which, hardly sensing it,

we already are; a gesture waves us on answering our own

. . . but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

– Ranier Maria Rilke, Selected Poems by Ranier Maria Rilke, traslated by Robert Bly, Harper Collins Publishers,1981.