Atlas remembers . . .

In Freya's mailbox a reminder: Today is Groundhog Day. Regardless of Punxsutawney Phil's notoriously unreliable predictions, St. Bridges' celebrations of the coming Spring are underway and there are buds this morning on my Silver Maple tree.

Good news from Quinnipiac: Biden is now leading Trump and the GOP bashing of Taylor Swift is backfiring like a Canadian forest fire.

James Joyce's birthday is being celebrated today. The author of Ulysses was born on this date in 1882 Rathgar, Ireland, just outside Dublin.

Today is also the birth date anniversary of Ayn Rand. The novelist and philosopher was born in 1905 St. Petersburg, Russia.

Yesterday, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it reentered the atmosphere over Texas and Louisiana, killing all seven astronauts on board. It was the second Space Shuttle mission to end in disaster,

The Watercourse also forms the border between the U.S. and Mexico. It, like The Way, flows in only one direction. But red-state followers since Reagan insist on swimming against its stream because it keeps the anxiety and fear quotient high for political rhetoric points. An excellent summary by Joyce Vance in Civil Discourse (online) was in the mailbox this morning.

When more people are watching the Hallmark Channel than CNN, you know we’ve reached a new level of interpersonal isolation. – Danyel Smith

There is meaning in a free-standing life. – Garrison Keillor

“Life is too short to read a bad book.” ― James Joyce

Splitting the Solstice

It's Thor's day. The mailbox opened to a cool, cloudy, calm morning here in TulseyTown ahead of a rainy weekend to come...

Looking for a miracle? If your eyes, ears, senses are open — miracles themselves — everything will be a miracle for you. You can't go searching for a miracle. To do so presupposes there isn't one. Stand still, let awe come to you.

Today marks the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere and we are getting closer to an equal day and night. In the Gaelic tradition, today is a festival called Saint Brigid's Day that is celebrated as the start of spring. The tradition has been dated as far back as 9000 years into the Neolithic.

Another major influence on my poetic life, poet Galway Kinnell was born 97 years ago today in 1927 Providence, Rhode Island. Apropos Valentine's Day this month, check out his poem “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps.”

It's the birth date of S. J. Perelman. The humorist was born in 1904 Brooklyn, New York.

And Langston Hughes was born 122 years ago today. The poet and novelist was born in 1902 Joplin, Missouri.

The man splitting wood in the daybreak

The man splitting wood in the daybreak

looks strong, as though, if one weakened,

one could turn to him and he would help

… We could turn to our fathers,

but they help us only by the unperplexed

looking-back of the numerals cut into headstones

… Everyone who could help goes or hasn’t arrived.

What about the man splitting wood in the daybreak,

who looked strong? That was years ago. That was me.

— Galway Kinnell, from Three Books. Houghton Mifflin Company. 2002.

I don't know where we're going or how we'll get there, but when we get there we'll be there - and that's something, even if it's nothing. – S.J. Perelman

Forest bathing … with picnic.

In the Tew's day's mailbox, accompanied by a waning Moon. . .

My wish, indeed my continuing passion, would be … to part a curtain, that invisible shadow that falls between people, the veil of indifference to each other’s presence, each other’s wonder ... – Eudora Welty

Co-dependency is not a disease. We survive because we are related to other beings. We are members of a forest that carries many names: Gaia, humanity, infinitely ecologically connected to everything.

Today was Richard Brautigan's birthday in Tacoma, Washington, 1935. Brautigan (Trout Fishing in America), Tom Robbins (Another Roadside Attraction), and Natalie Goldberg (Writing Down The Bones) were the instigators and guides to my own present creative endeavors.

It is also the 142nd anniversary of the birth of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR was born on this day in 1882 Hyde Park, New York.

Yesterday:

Writer and politician Thomas Paine, was born in Thetford, England 1737.

In 1880 comedian and actor W.C. Fields was born (sometimes listed as born in April 9, 1879) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania .

And, novelist and essayist Edward Abbey (Desert Solitaire), was born in 1927 Indiana, Pennsylvania.

I’ll affect you slowly as if you were having a picnic in a dream. There will be no ants.

And, it won’t rain. – Richard Brautigan