Only kindness makes any sense . . .
Wednesday, March 12, 2025. It's Odin's day . . . A clear, sunny, mild, calm sunrise this morning in TulseyTown. Forecasts indicate clouds rolling in this afternoon with 80º and moderate Southerlies, but no rain.
Mountains and oceans have whole worlds of innumerable wondrous features. We should understand that it is not only our distant surroundings that are like this, but even what is right here, even a single drop of water. – Dōgen
Der Trumpenfurher has begun to seize people who have not been charged with any crime. This is the classic lament of Pastor Martin Niemöller over what happened in Nazi Germany. – Joyce Vance, Civil Discourse.
CARE doesn’t care that often. – David Whyte
Today is the birthdate of Jack Kerouac. The author of “On the Road” was born in 1922 Lowell, Massachusetts.
Playwright Edward Albee was born in 1928 Washington, D.C.
Naomi Shihab Nye turns 72 today. The poet and fiction author was born in 1952 St. Louis, Missouri.
Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
[…]
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
[…]
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore...
– Naomi Shihab Nye, “Kindness,” Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. The Eighth Mountain Press, 1995.
There's always light: Ask a puppy...
Tuesday, March 11, 2025. It's Tiw's day . . . The weatherfeather next to the Malbox here in TulseyTown indicates strong Southerlies today, with lots'o'sunshine and upper 70's.
No amount of regret changes the past. No amount of anxiety changes the future. Any amount of grateful joy changes the present. – Ann Voskamp
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. No one way will work. It will take all of us shoving at this destructive insanity from all sides to bring it down. – Rob Brezsney, “This is Real.” Note to readers: this piece from Rob is a harsh read, outside his usual frame. He is not in the “red flag warning” camp. This time is different.
… every moment in life is absolute in itself. That’s all there is. There is nothing other than this present moment; there is no past, there is no future; there is nothing but this. So when we don’t pay attention to each little this, we miss the whole thing. And the contents of this can be anything. – cutting carrots, stubbing toe, sweeping floor, drinking coffee – anything. – Zen master Charlotte Joko Beck
Even in the darkest of this dark age, there is always light. That light comes with a smile, the smile of warriorship, the smile of fearlessness, the smile of realizing the best of the best of human potential. – Chögyam Trungpa, The Great Eastern Sun, Shambhala. 2001.
Need a puppy break? Joyce Vance sent one from Civil Discourse.
Defying common sense . . .
Monday, March 10, 2025. It's the Moon's day . . . Spring is springing in TulseyTown. Easy Southerlies in a clear sky making for a wonder-filled day we have never seen before.
We really are “In this together.”
You write and you write and you write and you cut about 29/30ths of the whole mess and you’ve got something darned decent, maybe better. Non-writers don’t know this; they think writing is a talent, but it’s actually a drive, you’re driven to do it and once it’s on the page you can tell what is dead leaves and rubbish and you delete it. The laptop is a beautiful tool that lets you highlight the rubbish and click on CUT and it’s gone. A miracle. – Garrison Keillor, The Column.
After the Watercourse continued on its Way this weekend here's what was left of the flotsam and jetsam.
Delta Airlines is said to be taking to the air with a whole new aircraft design from JetZero. Test flights are scheduled for 2027 and commercial flights in 2030 Check it out.
The good and the bad in the week ahead. – Joyce Vance, Civil Discourse
“Now” seems to be historically tragic. The MAGA mind is terrified of what they call “woke.” Consider: what is the opposite? Asleep. Obviously. To be awake is the most important perspective we can have in these historically tragic moments, with the awareness that it doesn't have to be this way. Tara Brach provides the insight in this recently posted talk.
[T]he process of one organism generating another from the raw materials of its own being — a process known as matrescence — blurrs the biological boundary between the creature imparted and the one doing the imparting. Matrescence is the ultimate refutation of the self, the ultimate affirmation that individuality is an illusion — a cocoon of ego to keep us from apprehending the plurality we are. The science behind it is so intricate and so defiant of our commonsense intuitions about the possible that it seems to partake of the miraculous. – Maria Popova, The Marginalian.