Old dead guys . . .
In Thor's mailbox this 16th day of 2023 March . . .
Today is the 173rd anniversary of Hester Prynne's birth in 1850 Boston, when Nathaniel Hawthorne's masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter, was published.
So, why, my students have asked, are we so preoccupied with “old dead guys?” The ones we tell them to read and who wrote the music played in concert halls, not to mention the folk music fossils featured on PBS during fund raising. Those “old dead guys.” Well, I think, the “why” is that they – the old dead guys (women included), have never left us. Nor will they. In a world where so many insist there is no meaning in it they continue to affirm that which is denied.
We poets, if I may speak for the arts in the broadest sense, do what we do hoping that some day, somehow, some one will read/experience something like the epiphany, ecstasy with which we were gifted during the time of our creative expression. We never know, of course, if or whether such a future moment ever occurs. The closest we can get to guessing about this, perhaps, is when we ourselves are moved by what we read, heard or saw last night or this morning, written or recorded in that “book” that somehow got published allowing us to return to it again.
This return to the epiphanic may be what keeps the artist engaged. It is a rather narrow road with an even narrower gate, in that such ideation carried by subliminal states comes unbidden into the present experience. It teaches that it cannot be found in the past nor projected into a dreamt of future. In that lesson we find how to allow “being” to “just be.” That epiphany, that ecstacy, that bliss, that blessing . . . is this present moment.
The seasons change, the days change, the hours of the day change. We ourselves change all along, and we experience many changes from moment to moment. This happens all around us and within us, twenty-four seven, never stopping for an instant. – Pema Chödrön
Celebrating being “woke.”
In Odin's mailbox on this . . .
. . . the Ides of 2023 March . . .
Today is the 90th anniversary of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's birth. Among the most influential members in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States, she was born March 15, in 1933 Brooklyn, New York. She died September 18th in 2020.
Julius Caesar was reportedly assassinated on this day in 44 B.C. having been warned (by Shakespeare) to “beware the Ides of March.” The “Ides” refers to the middle day of any month in the ancient Roman calendar. The Ides are specifically the fifteenth day of the months of March, May, July, or October, and the thirteenth day of the remaining months. In Roman times, the Ides were associated with the cycle of the full moon. The assassination that was meant to save the Republic actually resulted, ultimately, in its downfall. It sparked a series of civil wars and led to Julius' heir, Octavian, the first Roman emperor, becoming Caesar Augustus.
On March 15, 1820, Maine became a state and it changed America forever.
The [recent] collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) . . . appears to be due to the same deregulation mania and rich guy hubris that led to the 2008 collapse [and] may be the final nail in the coffin of the hero worship of tech billionaires. Beyond the thin veneer of social liberalism, Silicon Valley libertarians have the same ugly views about the economy that old-school Republicans have: The government has no role in regulating business, yet taxpayers should be on the hook for bailing out rich people from their own mistakes. – Amanda Marcotte
You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather. – Pema Chödrön
The Way (of the donkey)
In Tew's day's mailbox as the Ides approach . . .
. . . births on this date . . .
It’s the 144th anniversary of Albert Einstein’s birth in 1879 Ulm, Germany
The actor Michael Caine was born on this day in 1933 London, England. He shares his birthday with Quincy Jones. The musical performer, producer, arranger, and composer was born today in 1933, Chicago, Illinois
Photographer Diane Arbus was born in 1923 New York City.
And in 1887, Sylvia Beach was born in 1887 Baltimore, Maryland. She founded the bookstore and lending library called Shakespeare and Company, on the Left Bank of Paris, which became a central feature of the Parisian literary scene of the 1920s.
You are under no obligation to be different from who you were five minutes ago. – Rob Brezsney
Willpower is vaunted in popular culture. But, in fact, there’s growing evidence that self-control is not an exclusively beneficial characteristic – it can also come with various downsides. – Samantha Lapka
Developing basic sanity is a process of working on ourselves in which the path itself [The Way], rather than the attainment of a goal . . . is what constantly inspires us, rather than, in the style of the carrot and the donkey, being inspired by promises about certain achievements that lie ahead of us. -- Chӧgyam Trungpa