Stepping into paradise . . .
Saturday, May 2, 2026. It's the Satyr's day . . . another cool, sunny day for Green Country and TulseyTown. Moderate Northerlies are forecasted to hold temperatures in the low 70's. Southerlies and warming return overnight tonight.
Every step we take is a miracle. – Thich Nhat Hahn
President Eisenhower said, “In a very real sense, the world no longer has a choice between force and law. If civilization is to survive, it must choose the rule of law.” Trump is doing everything he can to ignore and avoid the rule of law. – Heather Cox Richardson, in yesterday's Letters From An American.
Classical music contains many memorable themes. Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake has several. It and Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto come immediately to mind. One of the most memorable themes in musical history is the opening dance in “The Polovtsian Dances” of Borodine's only opera Prince Igor. The “dances” score opens in the opera’s second act with a song, the text of which translates into a poem about longing for a time in the past in a land of true freedom. Here's link to the “Polovtsian Dances” by Alexandre Borodine, performed by the Sorbonne University Chorus and Orchestra. Now a concert staple around the world, that opening theme was was adapted into the score for the broadway musical Kismet and into a motion picture featuring a duet “Stranger in Paradise.” I lost count of the number of times “Stranger in Paradise” is listed on youtube. It's a perfect “duet” … attesting to the fact that Borodine's melody remains forever with us as among history's most beautiful and romantic themes.
Even silence can seem to the world like happiness –
like praise – from the pool of shade you have found
beneath the everlasting.
– Mary Oliver, “Just Lying On The Grass At Blackwater,” from Blue Iris, Beacon Press, 2004.
A peaceful May Day . . .
Friday, May 1, 2026. It's Freya's day . . . and It's May Day. Fittingly, the moon is a Flower Moon. It is the first of two full moons this month. The second, a Blue Moon, shows up at the end of the month on the 31st. A lovely May Day is at hand for Green Country and TulseyTown. Moderate Northerlies, a mix of sun and clouds and upper 60's are in the forecasts for the afternoon.
May Day is one of the most historically significant and culturally diverse observances on the global calendar.
Trump's approval ratings have it a new record low. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American.
Joyce Vance posted details of the Supreme Court evisceration of our voting rights, and why it matters, in Civil Discourse.
For May Day, the kind of economic system we need. – Robert Reich, at substack, 5.1.26
Today, film director and screenwriter Wes Anderson is 57. Creator of some of the quirkiest, funniest and moving films, he was born in 1969 Houston, Texas.
Citizen Kane, considered by many critics to be the greatest film ever made, premiered on this day in 1941 New York City. It was written produced and directed by Orson Welles who also played the title role.
Sweet Darkness
When your eyes are tired, / the world is tired also. \ When your vision has gone, / no part of the world can find you.
– David Whyte, “Sweet Darkness,” from The House of Belonging, Many Rivers Press, Revised edition, 2026.
If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work. – Thich Nhat Hanh
Drunk on impressionist echoes . . .
Thursday, April 30, 2026. It's Odin's day . . . forecasts for Green Country and TulseyTown indicate a near Xerox copy of yesterday. Moderate Northerlies, mostly cloudy, and upper 60's after noon.
The genuine path of unminding is not a religion for the immature – Zen Master Fen-yang.
Annie Dillard is 80 today. Born in 1945 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she's the author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek which won the Pulitzer Prize.
The controversial Danish film director Lars von Trier is 70 today. He was born in 1956, Copenhagen, Denmark
Today is also the birthday of Alice B. (for Babette) Toklas in 1877 San Francisco, California.
And the painter whose works were seminal to the mergence of impressionism, Édouard Manet, born today in 1832, Paris, France.
How to cope with a spiritual meltdown. – Mirabai Starr
Buddhism may seem to be mostly about fighting the ego, about nonself, about emptiness, but the Buddha said in the beginning, ‘Become friends with yourself, because it is your ego that will have to walk the path.’ To be able to do that—and then to develop deep understandings—we must be friends with our ego. – Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo inWomen in Love with the Divine, by Erica Bassani. Shambhala, 2026.
In each mind, winds stir up a different madness.
Give me the madness of the crazed, selfless lover,
pouring Love's wine, filling everyone's cup.
…
Wherever you go, you are with me.
Lead me where you wish.
...
The world is our holy mountain.
We are seekers like Moses.
One glimpse of the divine
and the mountain shatters.
…
If you want to see God
gaze at the mountain.
We are drunk on the echoes in the valley.
--Rumi, “Here We Are Today,” in Water, translation by Haleh Liza Gaforia, The New York Review of Books, 2025.
Truth is a pathless land. – J. Krishnamurti