Dancing for 200 years . . .

Sol is once again hiding behind icy cloud cover here in Okieland . . .but that didn’t interfere with the flotsam and jetsam flowing into today’s mailbox . . .

The problem isn't change. Change is a constant. The problem is what kind of change are we willing to engage with.

We cannot solve complex sustainability issues using the approaches we’ve employed in the past. – Stephen Posner and Kim Nolan, in “Integrating Inner & Outer Systems Change.” The Garrison Institute Newsletter, 01/20/24.

Resilience is really a secular word for what religion was trying to say with the word faith... Without a certain ability to let go, to trust, to allow, we won’t get to any new place. If we stay with order too long and we’re not resilient enough to allow a certain degree of disorder [evaluating the flotsam and jetsam along The Way], we don’t get smarter, we just get rigid. Unfortunately, this is what characterizes so many, including religious people. – Richard Rohr

Rigidity is the hallmark of the MAGA crowd and at its extreme leads to a form of mental illness. Check out Heather Cox Richardson's column of yesterday.

In the book of the earth it is written: nothing can die.

In the book of the Sioux it is written:

They have gone away into the earth to hide.

Nothing will coax them out again but the people dancing. – Mary Oliver,

The Great Sioux Nation's peoples

have been dancing for over 200 years.

The buffalo have begun returning.

The mysterious invitation

From the Satyr's day's mailbox on yet another deep-freeze morning in TulseyTown, a bit of grist for the mill

… it's sunny, windy and 41º in Rimini, Italy where they're celebrating the birthday of Federico Fellini. The film genius was born there 104 years ago in 1920. It's also the birthday of Edward Hirsch. The poet turns 74 years of age today, born in 1950 Chicago.

Joyce Vance has advanced a way to get United States v. Donald J. Trump televised even if the courts don't want it.

Driving the wedge of racism into the majority coalition seems to be a desperate attempt to stop ordinary Americans from taking back control of the country. – Heather Cox Richardson

It is time to replace the genetic blueprint idea in light of contemporary developmental biology...Our bodies are material iterations of a human engaged in the processes of being. – Richard O Prum (adapted)

Regarding the Five Remembrances of Buddha, there’s no need to overthink it. The Grim Reaper does not have to be your screensaver. But, you know, have coffee with the guy every now and then. Know that death is built into our program. That way, you won’t waste so much of your life trying to outsmart him. – Tina Lear

[Some people seem to think] writing is something you just decide to do one day and didn’t practice and study and devote your days to for decades. I want to laugh and say, “I am not the person to ask. I have no strategy. No five-step plan for success. I am lovesick [with writing]. I am a fool [with my pen]. I follow my obsessions.” – Sophie Strand (adapted).

I'm Going to Start Living Like a Mystic

I shall begin scouring the sky for signs

as if my whole future were constellated upon it.

I will walk home alone with the deep alone,

a disciple of shadows, in praise of the mysteries. – Edward Hirsch, from Lay Back the Darkness. Knopf, 2003.

The more you sense the rareness and value of your own life, the more you realize that how you use it, how you manifest it, is all your responsibility. We face such a big task, so naturally we sit down for a while. – Kōbun Otogawa

Lord, where's my Mercedes Benz?

In Freya's day's mailbox amid another Arctic cold visitation . . .

The Greeland ice-sheet has lost 20% more area that previously thought . . .

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival is under way both virtually and in Park City, Utah, January 18–28.

Today is the 215th birth anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe. The poet was born in 1809 Boston, Mass.

Both Dolly Parton and Janis Joplin share today as their birth dates. Dolly turns 78 today, born in 1946 Locust Ridge, Tennessee. Janis would have been 81, born in 1943 Port Arthur, Texas. The rock-star-diva died at 27 from a drug overdose.

Freedom's just another word for havin' nothin' left to lose. – Kris Kristofferson

It's also the birth date of Paul Cézanne. The French painter was born in 1839 Aix-en-Provence, France

Workin' 9 to 5,
What a way to make a livin'
Barely gettin' by
It's all takin' and no givin'
They just use your mind
And they never give you credit
It's enough to drive you crazy
If you let it . . .

They let you dream
Just to watch 'em shatter
You're just a step
On the boss-man's ladder
But you got dreams
He'll never take away. – Dolly Parton