Autumn Breathes
It's Tiw's day . . . here in Okieland, Fall is dancing with cool mornings and warm afternoons . . .
One of the best-selling poets in America and my “go-to” daily fave, Mary Oliver, was born on this date in Maple Heights, Ohio, a suburb of 1935 Cleveland. Among her many awards, she was the laureate of the Pulitzer Prize. For an introduction to her work, and to poetry in general especially if you've never bought a book of poetry, I'd urge her New and Selected Poems, Volume One, which brought the National Book award in 1992. There's also a Volume Two, equally compelling. There are also Kindl versions, but there is nothing quite like holding her pages in your hands after dog-earing 60-70% of her books leaves. Available from the AmazBezo shelves, or if you are anti-Bezo.
Song for Autumn
Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now
how comfortable it will be to touch
the earth / The wind wags
its many tails. And in the evening
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way. — Mary Oliver
Like most of us, my biology requirements in university taught that life is subject to its environment – that the demands of environment shapes the evolution of species. That view is being challenged by research revealing that life shapes life. Global warming, poisoned oceans, planetary forest fires – none have been visited upon us from afar.
Western science has long resisted and even ridiculed the idea that Earth is alive. Now, that is shifting. Although Gaia still retains a stigma in mainstream scientific circles, the idea of Earth as a vast interconnected living system is gaining acceptance. Life does not simply reside on Earth: it is an extension, and an expression, of the planet—an outgrowth of its structure and an engine of its own evolution. Life and environment have coevolved for billions of years. – Ferris Jabr
[M]illennials and Generation Z successors to the throne of youth are turning away from institutional religion faster than any other age group, raising a palpable sense of panic in religious communities concerned about their future. – Jennifer Bailey writing for Meditations from the CAC.
Prayer. It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak. – Mary Oliver, Thirst, Beacon Press, 2006.
“Interbeing” in a New World
It's the Moon's day . . . a cool walk to the Mailbox . . .
Among the principles that guide me is the idea that we can (and must) practice being free. A page like this is one place to do just that. So is the voting booth. (prompted by Holly Wren Spaulding)
Trump's mind is truly out to sea. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters from An American.
Today is the 196th anniversary of Leo Tolstoy's birth. The novelist who penned War and Peace was born into nobility near Tula, Russia in1828.
The author of Lost Horizon and Goodbye Mr. Chips, James Hilton, was born on this date in 1900 Leigh, Lancashire, England
Missed yesterday
One of the defining works of the Renaissance, Michelangelo's masterpiece David, was unveiled in the Piazza della Signoria in 1504 Florence.
In 1941 German and Finnish armies began a siege of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, which lasted for 872 days.
The actor with an astonishing number of characters, Peter Sellers, was born September 8, 1925, in Southsea, England.
Today in 1966, the first episode of Star Trek aired on NBC television.
And, Antonín Dvořák was born in 1841, Nelahozeves, Bohemia, Austrian Empire near Prague (now the Czech Republic).
The Buddhist concept of “no-self” does not mean the absence of a self nor its disappearance. “No-self” means simply that there is no self separate from all other selves. We are all “interbeings,” wholly and universally interconnected, no better demonstrated than by this video of the Dvořák Symphony #9, 4th movement, Conductor: Gustavo Dudamel and the Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert, recorded June 2, 2019. Worth every 13 minutes of your time.
The Truth of Alice (in Wonderland)
It's another Sol's day . . . and Fall is really getting ready to fall into Okieland . . .
Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the earth revolves. - Thích Nhất Hạnh.
Let's get this straight: ALL languages are metaphors as are the symbols that make them up. Every symbol, every word “stands for” (refers to) something else other than what substantively “it” is. “C” – in this instance refers to the k sound or symbol, “A” – the ah sound or symbol, “T” – the ta sound or symbol – strung together refer to the usually furry, purry, independent, not necessarily social critter we call a “cat.” That said, your brain generates an image for you that is unique to you. Your “cat” is likely not my “cat” – at least not immediately unless you've been recently reading “Alice in Wonderland.”
Similarly, if you've been (or ever) reading “The Bible” a similar confusion may surround our notions of “the fruit of the tree of knowledge.” Nowhere in any translation is the “fruit” identified. Yet somehow we've been told it was an apple. That's the problem with a preoccupation with literal to physical reality corrrespondences. How we got to the “apple” is a convoluted journey from the greek word for “evil” — so I’ve read somewhere — which somehow became “apple” somewhere on the not-so-straight-line. The “fruit” is a metaphor as is the entire book. “Truth” is another matter for another blurb.
Speaking of getting things straight(er): The European Union has a much stronger – while mandating diverse – democracy than our rather rag-tag-mish-mash metaphor here in the U.S. of A.
Jus’ sayin’ — jab