Dancing on a hot stove

It's Freya's day …

You put your hand on a hot stove top; you lose your temper and slam the door and your thumb at the same time; the fish you just caught bites you; a sudden shift in the wind collapses the spinnaker. In those situations, you are in direct contact with the energies that are alive in the situation. Situations automatically provide you with your next move when you are present to them. Life becomes like music. You dance in accordance with life. It's almost impossible to dance when your mind is wandering.

Yesterday, in a magistrate judge’s courtroom in the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in Washington, D.C., Trump faced the beginnings of accountability for trying to end democracy. It’s every American’s obligation to follow this process. – Joyce Vance

The prospects of an acquittal are vanishingly small. – Harry Litman (LA Times)

Louis Armstrong was born on this date in1901 Storyville, the poorest neighborhood of New Orleans.

The first African-American to be awarded the post of Poet Laureate Consultant to the Library of Congress, Robert Hayden was born today in 1913 Detroit, Michigan. Robert Hayden was the name given him by his adoptive family.

Its the 231st anniversary of Percy Bysshe Shelley's birth. The poet and essayist was born today in 1792 Field Place, Sussex, England.

Mary Oliver, a poet who continues to inform and enlighten me, loved dogs. Shortly after the death of her beloved “Percy” (after the poet Shelly) she published a memory from the experience (edited). . .

The first time Percy came back

he was not sailing on a cloud.

He was loping along the sand as though

he had come a great way.

… he was unreachable. As music

is present yet you can't touch it.

..."Yes, it's all different," he said.

"You're going to be very surprised...

And now you'll be telling stories

of my coming back

and they won't be false, and they won't be true,

but they'll be real."

And then, as he used to, he said, "Let's go!"

And we walked down the beach together.

– Mary Oliver, “The first time Percy came back.” In A Thousand Mornings: Poems. Penguin Press, 2012.

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Blue Sky God