The “new monk” next to you . . .
It's the first Moon Day after the Autumnal Equinox . . . and already temperatures are dropping in Okieland and Northerlies are bringing rain to TulseyTown...
It's the time of year when many of us turn attention toward a deeper kind of monasticism of our own.
A “new” monk seeks to expand monastic wisdom into the wider personal and social circle of our lives, while also fiercely protecting the centering point of silence and solitude regardless of the presence or absence of any religious affiliation....single, married, partnered, celibate, etc. – committed to the universal mystical heart and to the spirituality of nonviolence. – Beverly Lanzetta
Creatives – all “new monks” in their way – birthdays
Bruce Springsteen turns 75 today. The rock icon was born in 1949, Freehold, New Jersey. A present world tour begun in March ends this November.
It's the birth date of John Coltrane. The jazz saxophonist was born in 1926, Hamlet, North Carolina
And, Ray Charles was born on this day in 1930, Albany, Georgia
They will ask you what you have produced. Say to them, except for Love, what else can a Lover produce? – Rumi
Just another dime in the jukebox . . .
It's Sol's day . . . and the autumnal equinox moved into TulseyTown this morning at 7:45 a.m. pushed along by cool Northerlies and rain chances. And as if orchestrated, the first hints of red and gold are in the tree tops across from my cottage.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the first day of fall is the point in which the Sun is directly above the equator and the hours of day and night are nearly equal. In the Southern Hemisphere, today marks the vernal equinox, the first day of spring.
On this day 162 years ago, in 1862, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
The Electoral College [and why you need to send $ome love to Harris/Walz]. – Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from An American
Who are we really? We will soon find out. – Chauncey DeVega
AI Safety Is A Global Public Good: Chinese and Western AI scientists convene at the Berggruen Institute’s Casa dei Tre Oci In Venice, Italy.
Autumn poses the question we all have to live with: How to hold on to the things we love even though we know that we and they are dying. How to see the world as it is, yet find light within that truth...What do we have to hold on to? Only the certainty that nothing will go according to design... - Pico Iyer, Autumn Light, in The Marginalian.
Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame trailblazer Joan Jett was born today in 1958, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania.
Put another dime in that jukebox, baby.
And from the “been-there-done-that” list of lessons learned...
In search of the “Secret Chord” . . .
It's the Satyr's day … and it's “Fat Bear Season” in Colorado. Here in Okieland forecasts indicate today to be the last heat-hammer day of the season as the Fall Equinox arrives tomorrow morning at 7:45 a.m.
Today is Leonard Cohen's birth date. The poet, novelist, composer, singer/songwriter was born in the 1934 Montreal anglophone enclave of Westmount, Quebec
The Buddha taught that all of us, at our essence, are good and loving. Because of this basic goodness, we naturally want to be there for others, especially those who are closest to us and those who are in the greatest need. We are keenly aware that others need us, and that our society and the planet as a whole need us, especially now. We want to do what we can to alleviate the fear, anger, and painful groundlessness that so many of us are experiencing these days. But what often happens when we try to help is that we find our own confusion and habitual tendencies getting in the way. – Pema Chödrön, Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World, Shambhala Press, 2020.
Leonard Cohen has become an icon for many around the world. While many of his songs are considered on a long list of favorites, “Hallelujah” remains legendary. The song opens with an inigmatic verse:
Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do ya?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing "Hallelujah"
The “Secret Chord” from 'Hallelujah' has been recently and lovingly deconstructed in a post by guitarist James Hargreaves. You'll have to click out of the commercial interruptions, but it's a worthy few minutes. Also below is a link to Cohen's live version of the song.
Because there are many of us who've "been there," there have been many attempts to cover this song about God's love in the context of overwhelming grief. None, in my experience have ever come close to Cohen's own share, for reasons which are apparent in the rendering recorded in London. You may need a tissue.