Happiness Waiting . . .

Strong Northerlies and mainly sunny skies greet Northeastern Okieland this Freya's day . . . I am happy about that, but . . . the mailbox?

The World Happiness Report, recently released, shows that the US dropped out of the top 20 for the first time since 2012. While older people in the US did well, it was really the youth where the shift was most noticeable. Of the 143 countries surveyed, the US ranked 62nd for people under 30! Drilling down, it becomes apparent that we have spiritual crises underlying our current circumstances. – Soren in Wisdom 2.0

The latest technology and ethics confrontation:

Pig kidney organ transplantation into human recipient.

Birth control misinformation rampant in online media.

Otherwise, there were positive remembrances:

Billy Collins is celebrating his 83rd birthday. My present all time fave and Poet Laureate of the U.S. was born on this day in 1941 New York City. For an excellent but all too brief taste of Collins, check out a TED presentation. More about Billy Collins.

Today is also the birth date of Stephen Sondheim. The Broadway composer and songwriter (Into the Woods) was born in 1930 New York City.

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. / … To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. / … Put down the weight

of your aloneness / and ease into the conversation. /

The kettle is singing even as it pours you a drink. /

. . . All the birds and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

– David Whyte, “ Everything is waiting for you,” River Flow: New & Selected Poems, Many Rivers Press, 2012.

Everything we ever held in our hands is given away.

– David Whyte, “Letting Go,” in Everything is Waiting for You, Many Rivers Press; 2003.