Whistles blowing can get loud
It’s Thor’s day and the mailbox is making noises . . .
Birthdates yesterday:
Aldous Huxley, Godalming, Surrey, England in 1894 . George Bernard Shaw was born in 1856, Dublin.
Carl Jung was born on this date in 1875 Kesswil, Switzerland. Jean (… “you'll shoot your eye out” ...) Shepherd was born in 1921 Chicago, Illinois.
In 1928 Stanley Kubrick was born in New York City. And Yesterday in 1943 was the birth of Mick Jagger in Dartford, England.
Barbie Dharma: see the movie and check out this link to Lions Roar.
Ever wonder: Why do some people get so angry and infuriated when confronted with information that suggests that their suffering and distress are a result of exploitative capitalist/colonial systems rather than stemming from innate, individual biological defects? – Ayesha Khan, PhD
To let the moment teach us, we must allow ourselves to be at least slightly stunned by it until it draws us inward and upward toward a subtle experience of wonder. We normally need a single moment of gratuitous awe to get us started. – Richard Rohr
That single moment arises often in the ordinary: flowers on the side of the road; finding a really, really good stick on the ground; a shift in the wind in our sails. And it also includes things we generally don’t even think of as pleasures, like the water on our hands as we wash dishes; even the hot sun on our face as we step off the porch. There are thousands of such moments happening every day offered for our gratitude.
Speaking of: Sebastian Murdock writing for Huffington has posted a bit of awesome concerning UAP's: “the U.S. government has been taking part in "a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program. . . . “non-human” “biologics” were found at crash sites where the objects were recovered." The statements were made during a congressional hearing yesterday focused on UAP's.
It's alright, Ma, I'm only bleedin' . . .
Odin's mailbox has “good” news … and compared to mainstream media this blog is awash in positivism . . .
Three questions to ask when facing uncertainty, so you can let go of rigidity and embrace change.
The first question that you can ask yourself the next time you face something unexpected: How might this change change what you're capable of? We greatly underestimate how much we'll change in the future, even though we fully acknowledge we've changed considerably in the past. . .The second question: How might this change change what you value? An unexpected implosion can permanently shift the way we see our life. From a puzzle in need of solutions to a more serendipitous path of discovery. . .Third and final question: How might this change change how you define yourself? Facing the unexpected, these three questions can help open the door to beginning to see change with more possibility. – Maya Shankar. Check out Dr. Shankar at her TED talk.
The political maelstrom swirling around coronavirus vaccines may be to blame for a higher rate of excess deaths among registered Republicans in Ohio and Florida during the coronavirus pandemic, according the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. The report published yesterday underscores the partisan divide over coronavirus vaccines that have saved lives but continued to roil American politics even as the pandemic waned.
The GOP wants research into gun violence to stop. – LA Times headline
Every time I hear one of those voices amplified by the “yes/no/lets-you-and-him-fight” media saying “don't look over there in that corner,” the journalist and social scientist in me starts looking immediately into corners.
Our ability to unify as many peoples is our strength. And the heroes of this moment will be those . . .who know that one’s strength is not measured based on who you beat down, but who you lift up. – Vice president Kamala Harris.
We can’t just choose to learn what we want to know. We have to learn what we should know. We should know about our country. We should know everything: the good, the bad, the truth of who we are as a nation. That’s what great nations do. – President Joseph Biden
Both quotes above by Heather Cox Richardson in her Letters from an American.
If we can experience the moment we’re in, we discover that it is unique, precious, and completely fresh. It never happens twice. One can appreciate and celebrate each moment—there’s nothing more sacred. There’s nothing more vast or absolute. In fact, there’s nothing more – Pema Chödrön
Resisting persistent resistance
In Tew's day's mailbox . . .
On this date in1897 Jack London sailed from San Francisco, on his way to the Klondike. Garrison Keillor posted a good summary of the 21-year-old novelist's journey (along with several other landmarks on this date).
. . . what we need isn’t willpower; we need the power to surrender the will and to trust what is. . .if we start with negative energy, a “don’t,” we won’t get very far. . .We know the old shibboleth, “Don’t think of an elephant.” If we try not to, that dang elephant invariably sneaks back into our minds! Just wait. To actively oppose something actually engages with it and gives it energy. Our first energy has to be “yes” energy. From there we can move, build, and proceed. We must choose the positive, which is to choose love, and rest there for a minimum of fifteen conscious seconds—it takes that long for positivity to imprint in the neurons. – Richard Rohr
This is the first time in history that publicly acknowledging that you follow two or more distinct spiritual traditions would not have you burned at the stake, stoned to death, or facing a firing squad. We tend to forget what an extraordinary time this is, that for the first time in history we have the entirety of the world's spiritual and religious traditions available to us, and we can practice them without fear. – Roger Walsh cited by Rob Brezsney today. See Walsh's bio here.
Contraadiction
for Louise Glück
We are alive and we are dead.
Not being and being,
Doing and forgetting,
We are less being and more dead.
Dying we do less and less until
All that’s left is being.
Beauty we take with us.
— jb in my collection “An Ark of Bricks”