The Moon's Soul . . .
It's Sol's day and strong Southerlies are rattling the mailboxes along The Way while the moon is waning toward new next week . . .
We can’t access our full intelligence and wisdom without some real connection to [the soul of] nature. – Fr. Richard Rohr
Poet James Merrill was born on this date. The Pulitzer Prize laureate was born in 1926 New York City.
Ira Glass turns 65 today. The host of This American Life was on this day in 1959 Baltimore, Maryland.
Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata was published on this date in 1802 Imagine hearing this for the first time in a concert hall in 1801, and never being able to hear it again played the same way. Maybe not even being able to hear it again.
When we look into the eyes of a cat, or even a chicken, and when they return the gaze, are we recognizing unspoken, forgotten, shared genetic memories? – David Waltner-Toews writing in Aeon online 3.2.24
Jus' Sayin'
We are tribal in our DNA. Our language, consciousness and socialization are manifestations of training in small groups. In a world – let alone a universe – so large as to be beyond anything but our feeble imagination, our global crises are frightening and add to an already overloaded state of anxiety. The progressive solutions require accepting our fear in order to overcome our tribal desires to withdraw, shut down, or even strike out against anything that looks like an “other” – insisting on our isolating individual separatism ranging from our relationships to public policy.
We fear our universal interconnectedness – from the mycileal to the womb of birthing stars – when unity is the only reality. “The Way” yields to us only as we become able to say “Yes.” The butterfly's wings affect the weather. So, what happens when we kill all the butterflies?
I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace. – Diane Ackerman For more about Ms. Ackerman
The old moon lying in the young moon's arms
lives in the shadow of her crescent light / and yet
he rounds her out, shields her from harm /
as she ripens in the star-encrusted night.
Almost a Tao sign, they embrace with limbs /
luminous and stark, wedded by less but embraced
by design / The arch their symbol /
a strength mde from two weakneses.
– Diane Ackerman, from “Natural Wonders”, in Poetry, 1994.