Beyond the limits of longing
It's the Moon's day … waxing from its New Moon eclipse on another bitterly cold day in Okieland . . .in the mailbox:
Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been 95 years old today. He was born on this day in 1929, Atlanta, Georgia.
Yesterday's blog theme reflected upon the chaos of duality. After I posted and returned to the mailbox, I found a note from Richard Rohr: If we are to live on this Earth, we cannot bypass the necessary tension of holding contraries and inconsistencies together.
Among those tensions is this one: “We are not okay. Our privilege comes at a cost.” – Ayesha Khan, Ph.D.
Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. – Martin Luther King, Jr.
The birth of an idea in a mind — the conception of something improbable and lovely out of the cold clay of the ordinary — is one of the great miracles of existence. – Maria Popova,
The “real” is not always inaccessible. “At the very moment at which philosophy says you can't directly access the real, we are drilling down ever deeper into it.” – Timothy Merton, from his book Dark Ecology.
First Lessons
– after Rilke
Creation speaks to us
as we are made walking
silently into the light.
The words we dimly hear:
Go out beyond
the limits of longing.
Go beyond your recall.
Keep going.
There are countries built by rule games
only some of which are written.
Pay attention to those that begin with
“Take the following rules seriously.”
Nearby is the country called life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Know also,
you are not alone.
– JB
A softer chaos
Sol is nowhere to be found this morning in Northern Okieland. We're at 0º in TulseyTown with a goodly snowfall forecasted for this afternoon along with Northerly wind-chill at 25º below zero. Reminiscent of my times in Maine. That said, there were a few items in the not-yet-frozen-shut mailbox:
The Boeing debacle gets even uglier, forcing the airline industry to confront a question they don't want to face: Is it really safe to fly?
Another tough question: Has there ever been a “fair fight” in history?
Today is the birth date of Hugh Lofting. The author of the Dr.Dolittle novels was born 138 years ago on this date in 1886 Maidenhead, Berkshire, England.
Guarding softness is strength. The mutual arising of opposites is everywhere to be found and is central to all forms of energy...The mutually-dependent duality of yin yang sits atop of an empty circle known as tai chi, the ultimate reality, the emptiness from which the phenomenal world instantiates...Nature, when unimpeded, brings opposites into a sensitive order. This is the foundational cosmic intelligence, the Tao, the force pulling polarities into tenuous balance. – Jeff Krasno
There are lessons to be learned from the dharma of snow. Among them we discover that We cannot find the unconditioned out in the world. We can only know it in the heart.
The chaos of snow
f
a
l l
in g
creates an ordered landscape
in the same way our brains
find sense in a graphic metaphor
and beauty in a snow-filled woodland.
– JB
The grand waltz
The grand universal do-ing continues in 3/4 time: four steps forward, three steps back . . .
It's Satyr's day: a deep freeze Winter storm is staring at us from the horizon here in OkieLand...and Garrison Keillor navigates a slough of despond.
Happiness exists in one place and at one time: in you and right now. – Emily Fletcher
Today is the 176th anniverary of Lilla Cabot Perry's birth. The American impressionist painter was born on this date in 1848 Boston, Massachusetts.
Admire as much as you can, most people don't admire enough. – Vincent van Gogh
Maria Popova has announced The Universe in Verse event is to be in Austin in April on the eve of an anticipated eclipse of the sun.
The universe knows what it is doing.
And, among its doings,
it is doing us.
What was, was.
What will be, will be.
What is, is what is, is.
– jb