Stayin' Alive
In the Sun-day mailbox
There's a reason why conservatives want to turn back the calendar.
One of the hardest things to remember is that we’ve truly never before experienced this moment. Such remembering requires “the beginner's mind.”
The week ahead looks to be an interesting one.
Mind may not be matter, even if it does . . .
Friday, St. Patrick's Day, The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian president Vladimir Putin for war crimes: kidnapping Ukrainian children and transporting them to Russia.
The past is not dead. It's not even past. – Wm. Faulkner
Mysteriouser and mysteriouser . . .
In the Saturday mailbox . . .
Sometimes the student is the student, and the teacher is the teacher. Sometimes the teacher is the student. And sometimes the student is the teacher. Based on respect and honesty they bow to each other.
On today's date in 1939, Georgia, Connecticut and Massachusetts finally ratified the Bill of Rights, 150 years after the birth of the federal government.
Today is the 91st anniversary of John Updike's birth. The prolific novelist/essayist/poet was born on this date in 1932 Reading, Pennsylvania. He was one of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once. Updike died in January of 2009.
Fifty-five years ago today, Robert Kennedy spoke at the University of Kansas, in Lawrence, Kansas, on March 18, 1968. Part of his speech deserves to go and remain viral:
Too much and too long, we have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.
It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts [the automatic weapons and funeral parlors serving victims of mass shootings] and the television programs that glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl.
Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.
And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.
Three months after Kennedy's Kansas appearance, On June 5, 1968, he was assassinated.
Today is also the birthday of the poet who reportedly said “beauty has only one perfect expression, Poetry. All the rest is a lie." The French poet Stéphane Mallarmé, born on this date 1842 Paris.
If you think you are not in touch with the Great Mystery, look again. It is still just as mysterious as it was when you were a child.
Endings, beginnings, continuing’s . . .
It is the 17th day in March and the weather here in TulseyTown is downright frigid reminding us that March is the end of Winter as much as it is the beginning of Spring. In Freya's mailbox this Friday morning . . .
Today is the 422nd anniversary of the The first St. Patrick’s Day parade, held in a 1601 Spanish colony in what is now St. Augustine, Florida. The first such celebration in America occurred 286 years ago today with Boston's celebration in 1737.
64 years ago today in 1959, the Dalai Lama fled from the Tibetan capitol of Lhasa for India one week ahead of a Chinese military attack. The government in exile he set up in India remains vibrant as does his ongoing teaching and sharing his “religion of kindness.”
All languages suffer from the same disease: they are constructed symbol systems that refer to and treat all phenomena as “things.” The “thingness” of such systems constructs a world-view constituted of seemingly separate, disconnected parts. The impact of this wholly human undertaking is more than metaphorically staggering. This largely unconscious schizoid world-view has led us down an infinite rabbit-hole that contains an eco-armageddon of quite real possibility. Rhetoric is the patriarchal sword attempting to slice and dice even the nature of being into non-being. Language is dual, the universe is not.
Every waking moment we are creating art. Our lives are our art. Our words and actions weave the colorful fabric of creation. When we’re caught up in life and its many tasks and challenges, we may sometimes forget that it’s simply a miracle to be alive and that part of our existence as human beings means that we are inherent creators—telling our stories and giving our offerings to the world.-- from the introduction to “What is Zen” at Prajna Studios | Shambhala Publications online.
. . . if you want to make progress on the path and ascend to the places you have longed for, the important thing is not to think much but to love much, and so to do whatever best awakens you to love. – Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle, trans. Mirabai Starr