The ordinarily rare . . .

Wednesday, January 14, 2026. It's Odin's day . . . Strong, gusty Northerlies are in the forecasts for TulseyTown today, bringing clouds, sunshine, and low 50's. Wind chill in the 40's is indicated until late afternoon. A hard freeze in the low 20's tonight. My besties in Panama are anticipating thunderstorms today.

May you embrace this day, not just as any old day, but as this day. Your day. Held in trust by you, in a singular place, this place called now. – Carrie Newcomer

What we call “meditation” was natural to us during our evolution, as we sat around a fire in the quiet darkness, or lay on the ground looking up into the stars, or tried to make ourselves disappear so an animal would come near. Notice that everything you usually take yourself to be is an object that can be observed. You can describe your body, your feelings, your thoughts, and your memories. If they can be known, they cannot be your true self, because their very existence implies a subject that knows them.
What is it that knows? What is doing this watching of the self?

Yesterday, the Clintons refused to testify in the House’s Epstein investigation, escalating a monthslong battle and effectively daring Kentucky Republican James Comer to follow through on his threats to hold them in contempt of Congress.

Today is the birthdate of Albert Schweitzer. The Nobel Prize laureate was born in 1875, Kaysersberg, Upper Alsace, Ger. (now in France).

Today is also the birthday of Osip Emilievich Mandelstam. The Russian poet was born in 1891 Warsaw and raised in the imperial capital of St. Petersburg.

Just For Joy

In the dense forest of life fear cannot be overcome.
Only kisses are left for us.

– Mandelstam, “Just For Joy.” composed in 1913 in a collection “Trista” and included in The Complete Poems (translated), University of New York Press, 1973

What we think is rare is not really so; what’s rare is our being open to it, right in the midst of the ordinary.