Clarity, contemplated . . .
It's Sol's day . . . The heat hammer is falling on the planet.
Many of us are afraid of silence … Having plenty of stimuli makes it easy for us to distract ourselves from what we’re feeling. But when there is silence, all these things present themselves clearly. – Thich Nhat Hanh
Today is the birth date of Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. The author of what many believe to be the greatest piece of literature written about Stalinist Russia, she was born 135 years ago on this date in 1889 Bolshoy Fontan, near Odessa, Ukraine, Russian Empire.
Before you buy your next box of cereal or bologna for your next sandwich, or that bucket of fried chicken . . .check this out and be prepared to skip the ads ...
Good and bad. Right and wrong. Love and hate. Success and failure. Nirvana and samsara. We experience the world through the lens of duality. The brain divides everything it perceives into good and bad, like and dislike—generating attachments to what we like and aversion towards what we dislike. These attachments and aversions become the source of our suffering... The Buddhist teachings remind us that opposites can’t exist without each other. – “Three Teachings: The Dharma Door of Nonduality,” Tricycle, 2024.
Opening to it, the Watercourse will bring a nondual awareness that sees beyond apparent opposites to the essential unity. Beyond the confines of the thinking mind, dualities collapse into a state of oneness—the true nature of ourselves and all of life.
While the dualities of brain symbol generation is the source of addictions, that same symbol generation has led us to science and its revelations – especially in the areas of the quantum field, and consequent with the great wisdom traditions – that the duality is illusion within a nondual and universal manifestation.
If the traveler is asked
“Where are you?”
He will answer, “On The Way.”
“Where are you walking?”
“Along The Way.”
“Where are you coming from?”
“From The Way.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the Way coming from The Way.”
[Like a white stone]
Like a white stone deep in a draw-well lying,
as hard and clear, a memory lies in me.
I cannot strive nor have I heart for striving:
It is such pain and yet such ecstasy. . .
The ancient gods changed men to things, but left them
a consciousness that smoldered endlessly,
that splendid sorrows might endure forever.
And you are changed into a memory.
– Anna Akhmatova
Akhmatova and Modigliani: A creative spark in The Flight of Time. Left out of almost every biography of either one of them. Almost.
Contemplating clarity . . .
It's the Satyr's day . . . appropriately the mailbox is heating up with political considerations . . .
Philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre, was born 118 years ago yesterday in 1905 Paris.
We are our choices … I am going to outlive myself. Eat, sleep, sleep, eat. Exist slowly, softly, like these trees, like a puddle of water, like the red bench in the streetcar. — Sartre
The European Union has formally given the green light to a new binding agreement to restore degraded ecosystems across land and sea in a bid to improve climate mitigation and adaptation, and enhance food security. . It is now in force.
The Sinclair Broadcast Group's stations have been flooding its local media websites with cheap fakes and other stories suggesting that President Biden is “mentally unfit for office.” – Heather Cox Richardson, on her post Letters from an American.
KTUL TV in TulseyTown, broadcasting on Channel 8, is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group
Joyce Vance on her site Civil Discourse posted a very concerning video from John Oliver. His detailing of what is called Project 2025 is essential for understanding what is at stake in the November Presidential election.
It has been commonly argued – from Karl Marx to Milton Friedman to Steve Jobs – that it is precisely moments of crisis like [the ones we now face] that provide opportunities for transformative change and innovation. Might it be possible to leverage the instability that appears to threaten us? – Roman Krznaric, The Disruption Nexis, Aeon, 21 June 2024.
Trying to Name What Doesn’t Change
. . .
Stars explode.
The rose curls up as if there is fire in the petals.
The cat who knew me is buried under the bush.
The train whistle still wails its ancient sound
but when it goes away, shrinking back
from the walls of the brain,
it takes something different with it every time.
– Naomi Shihab Nye, Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. Far Corner Books, 1995.
Noisy Strawberries
It's Thor's day . . . Summertime and a full Strawberry Moon is set to coincide with the Summer Solstice. And farther North, its the first day of the Midnight Sun.
Back from a few days away from TulseyTown to the 4 corners of OK, Ark, Mizzu and JayHawk country. Visited long time friend and colleague living in the lap of Pittsburg, Kansas. Made new acquaintances who likely will become friends as time unfolds. I read and shared poetry, ate sumptuosly. talked shared philosophies. I worked with my hosts as a “go-fer” on a shed building project (and managed to scrape my right elbow in a minor fall due to a faulted step). Pittsburg, Kansas is growing into a progressive community. A university in a small town can do that.
401 years ago yesterday, mathematician, physicist, and theologian Blaise Pascal was born in 1623 Clermont-Ferrand, France
Eighteen-year-old Alexandrina Victoria became Queen of England on this date in 1837
Playwright Lillian Hellman, “A "tough broad ... the kind who can take the tops off bottles with her teeth..." was born on this day in 1905 New Orleans.
Yesterday was Juneteeth and the day the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed into law by the United States Senate.
People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive. – Pascal, On the Art of Persuasion, 1658.
A blindfold can indeed obscure your sight, but cannot make The Way itself grow dark.