Wax on, wax off ...
It's Odin's day and in the Celt traditions it is Beltane, midway between the Spring equinox and Summer solstice. While many celebrate “May Day” with its promise of flowers, it is also another moment of transition that can insist on our attention.
Many claim to have found God in the mountains. I don’t know what God is, but I admit to having sought her there too. Whatever my search, I have found that the pursuit of scientific inquiry — its own, necessarily limited kind of truth-seeking — can be as much an act of devotion as it is scholarly meditation. – Richard J. Nevle, in The Marginalian, 4/28/24.
The greening of greed: Power: Nuclear, wind, solar, political … Germany struggles for a vision for all of us …
The muddy mirror: It's all the media's fault. A “must read,” IMO.
Maybe the problem is all of us. And the solution, then, is also all of us. – Soren
Beltaine
They jumped through the fire, it is said.
… My blood is seas of space, handfuls of moon,
from the fires of my grandmother’s mother.
… This time, I jump through the fire alone.
I do not wed a man, I wed a place. Surface
through the smoke, mountain-born, naked
as a star. Finally whole.
– Sophie Strand, “Beltane” posted on her substack: Spring Poems, 4/28/24.
There is no promise of happy endings. Rather, on our journey on The Way this “I” who wants to find security—who wants something to hold on to—will finally learn to grow up. – Pema Chödrön
No time to build fences . . .
It's Tew's day . . . it's sunshine, Southerlies, and upper 80's today in TulseyTown … what's not to like?
Today in 1989 London, Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities was first published in serial form. It was a major success with 125,000 sold. Said today to be the best selling novel of all time, it is now in public domain.
Annie Dillard turns 79 today. She was born in 1945 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her non-fiction novel Pilgrim at Tinker Creek was awarded The Pulitzer Prize in 1975.
The first public television broadcast in the United States was made at the New York World's Fair today in 1939 by The National Broadcasting Company (NBC).
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way— Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.
Completely outside the box, I found a new/old, eco-friendly substitute for the war-mongering National Anthem . . .
Happy, joy, free, peace.
Wandering Wonderer ...
It's the Moon's day … a week away from a new one … Today, TulseyTown is basking in the sun after a weekend of storms that slammed many of our out of town neighbors.
Whether we are world travellers or home bound stick-in-the-muds, we are creatures just traveling through: our essence and our attention caught, even as we sit in our arm chairs, gazing at our screens, by mythological images that mirror our traveling nature. – David Whyte, “Sojourn,” Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words, a new edition forthcoming from Three Rivers Press (I think).
Long list of creatives' birthdays today...
Michelle Pfeiffer is 66, Daniel Day-Lewis turns 67, Willie Nelson is still going strong at 91, Duke Ellington would be 135, the conductor Zubin Mehta is 88, and Jerry Seinfeld is 70. Each and all were born on today's date.
Sometimes, Willie and I wonder about the same stuff . . .