Adapting to Wisdom – an Art Form. . .

It's Freya's day . . . a bit late to the mailbox, the muse patient with my laundry, an early buzzz from the dryer . . .

Birthdays of note:

Frédéric Chopin was born in 1810 Żelazowa Wola, near Warsaw, Duchy of Warsaw now in Poland

Robert Lowell, the poet whose work established the Confessional style, was born on this date in 1917 Boston, and twice won the Pulitzer Prize.

Another Pulitzer prize poet, Richard Wilbur, was born today in 1921 New York City.

Film director and actor Ron Howard is 70 years old today. He was born today in 1954, Duncan, Oklahoma, not a far cry from here in TulseyTown.

And, Justin Bieber turns 30 today. The pop culture icon / singer was born in 1994, London, Ontario, Canada.

Humans can and do adapt to many different environments, but that doesn't mean we do very well in all of them. What is considered “normal” in our culture is not normal for what it means to be a true human, being. Trying to understand “human nature” by studying ourselves inside our culture is as limited as trying to understand the nature of what it's like to be a gorilla or zebra by going to the zoo.

Mindful

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
– Mary Oliver, “Mindful” from Why I Wake Up Early, Beacon Press; First Edition. April 15, 2005.