Ice-cream Emperors

It's a day named after Thor . . . and the mailbox has been filling up with ice-cream.

We can trace our modern shopping habits all the way back to that first Pittsburgh broadcast, 97 years ago today, on station KDKA. Garrison Keillor provided a worthy reflection on this milestone in his Writer's Almanac post of 2017. Scroll down to mid-page of the piece.

Today in 1936 The British Broadcasting Corporation officially launched its first television channel, which was also the world's first regular TV service. It was, and still is a non-commercial service, unlike the advent of television in the U.S. which has been instrumental in spreading American popular culture globally.

Twenty-three years ago today, The first resident crew—including one American and two Russians—arrived at the International Space Station.

. . . we aren’t at the top of anything; we’re simply at the tip, the tip of one small branch of a very huge, verdant tree, and all created things are our grandparents, cousins, and siblings. – Brian McLaren, celebrating All Saints Day.

One of the finest poets in the English language was born on this past Tuesday in 1795: John Keats.

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought . . .

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

– John Keats, from Ode on a Grecian Urn. July 1820.

Livin' an' dyin' in ¾ time

It's Tew's day and a Full Moon has begun to wane… shining fittingly on Halloween traditions.

Beyond the traditions of costumes and candy, Halloween reminds us of the delicate balance of life and death, light and dark, and the great lessons of both. The Halloween we know began as Samhain, a pagan festival that signaled the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. It celebrated the introduction of darker days ahead and marked the time of year where it was thought the veil between the physical and unseen world was the thinnest. Perhaps the most famous of these traditions in our part of the world, the Mexican tradition of Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, celebrates those who have passed on. Organized Christianity moved to co-opt the pagan rites with All Saint's Eve and All Saint's day.

And, in case you missed it: . . . in spite of the ghouls and revenants and other morbid players from the sidewalk boneyard, Halloween is a holiday for the living. – Melissa Kirsch

While the stock market crash of 1929 was initiated in on the 24th of October, the actual bottom fell out of the market on the 29th that year. Heather Cox Richardson's blog Letters from an American provides a good account of the sequences and effects.

And, for a real horror story: There's a genuine movement to impose dictatorship in America — and it goes well beyond Donald Trump – Thom Hartmann

In the deep fall . . .

at evening especially,

the piled firewood shifts a little,

longing to be on its way.

– Mary Oliver, from “Song for Autumn” in New and Selected Poems: Volume Two. Beacon Press, 2005.

Unfathomable

It's Sol's day . . . and a cold, rainy day at hand as I opened the mailbox:

Heather Cox Richardson on her blog Letters from an American, posted an excellent piece regarding the effects of disinformation and online media manipulation.

. . . everyone, everywhere, is feeling inundated with feelings of fear and grief and images of heartbreak—the kind that make you gasp and feel hopeless. . .We are in the midst of a global heartbreak . . . [and yet] there are so many more good people than terrorists out in the world . . . that, despite whatever pain they’ve lived through, get up every day and try to help others. — Maria Shriver

. . . in spite of the ghouls and revenants and other morbid players from the sidewalk boneyard, Halloween is a holiday for the living. – Melissa Kirsch

The world becomes only what it is, the flow of an unfathomable river. – Jim Harrison