The loving gift . . .

Friday, February 21, 2025. It's Frigg's (Freya's) day … and the Arctic grip on TulseyTown for the past several days is easing. Forecasts indicate a 32º day with lots of sunshine. The downside: lots of melting is likely to set us up for black ice with well below freezing tonight.

Gift yourself a little no-thing-ness somewhere in each day. All your creativity arises from there.

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located...was not in them, it only came through them … For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited. – C.S. Lewis

Today is the 118th anniversary of W.H. Auden's birth. The poet, playwright, critic, and librettist, who remains generally considered as the greatest English poet of the twentieth century, was born in 1907 York, England.

It's also the birth date of Anaïs Nin. The French/American diarist, novelist and short story writer was born on this day in 1903 Neuilly, France.

The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

– W. H. Auden, “The More Loving One,” from Homage to Clio. Random House.1960.