Who gets to eat . . .
Tuesday, April 8, 2025. It's Tiw's day. Spring is in full for TulseyTown. Easy Southerlies are forecasted to bring clear, sun-filled skies and mid 70's
Today is the birthday celebration in Japan of Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Gautama Buddha.
Today in 1935 Congress approved funding for President Franklin Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration. Known as the WPA it also included writers and artists of every ilk.
Barbara Kingsolver turns 70 today. The novelist, essayist, and poet was born in 1955 Annapolis, Maryland.
Democracy and dictatorship are political systems, they have to do with who participates in leadership. Socialism and capitalism are economic systems. It has to do with who owns the wealth of your nation, and who gets to eat. – Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible,
The week ahead. – Joyce Vance, Civil Discourse, 4.6.25
Is it possible to will the world into [Trump's] own making—to get everyone to see his version of reality? (Trump, crazily enough, is a master at creating and reinforcing a story.) The autocrat tactic of repeating the lie as often as possible until it is accepted as truth is clearly in process. Will global leaders agree that the U.S. has been badly treated and come crawling back to renegotiate deals? Or will the rest of the world band together and say: “Enough is enough. We hold the power here. You can isolate and destroy yourself and the US economy if you choose.” – Soren 2.0
Historically, every empire has collapsed and this might well be America's moment. If it is, we likely won't be willing to recognized that it has, much less accept our part in it, until it is beyond the point of no return.
Letting go doesn’t mean giving up. It means choosing freedom over pressure. Presence over performance. Self-love over self-punishment. – Marie Foreleo
One Bird Yes
Alone flying east into the sun
not yet risen
into a welcoming sky.
We, the bird and I
share the hope of the day.
The promise of light.
I said to Roshi,
“Inside there is a yes and a no.”
He said, “Follow the yes.”
I think the bird was
following the
yes.
– james allen bethel, “One Bird Yes,” publication pending.
Minds change in moments . . .
Monday, April 7, 2025. It's the Moon's day … and after a near freezing morning, light breezes bring sunny Spring warmth back to TulseyTown this afternoon.
Say yes to new beginnings. With every thought, in each moment-by-moment instant, we co-create our lives.
[R]ather than something arising once non-conscious matter is configured in a particular way, consciousness might turn out to be an intrinsic property of matter that has existed for as long as the universe. – Maria Popova, The Marginalian, 4.6.25.
I now believe that the other reality we are rightly seeking is not elsewhere or in the future but right in our own hearts and heads! If we put on an entirely different mind, then heaven takes care of itself and, in fact, begins now. – Fr. Richard Rohr, Meditations, The Center for Action and Contemplation.
Birthdays today of creatives who helped change our consciousness . . .
English Romantic poet William Wordsworth was born in 1770 Cockermouth, Cumbria, England.
Sitarist Ravi Shankar was born in 1920 Benares, India.
The jazz singer Billie Holiday was born in 1915 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
And, Francis Ford Coppola turns 86 today. the motion-picture director, writer, and producer was born in 1939, Detroit, Michigan.
Seasons
I am the ground. The ages to me are only seasons. – Rilke
These are the seasons of transformation – from our long horrific history of abuse / to what we cannot yet know. /
And so, we are terrified / and filled with anxiety almost daily wondering, / praying for a quick fix, /
a return to what was our ignorance. / But this will not be a quick season. / Healing cannot be rushed. /
Guided by Gaia, from our rootedness / in the earth to the consciousness of stars, / this is not a superficial process. /
It will be long and demands careful attention / to O'Donohue's advice from his collection / To Bless the Space Between Us:
For The Interim Time:
The more faithfully you can endure here,
the more refined your heart will become
for your arrival in the new dawn.
— John O'Donohue, “For The Interim Time,” in To Bless the Space Between Us, Doubleday, 2008.
— james allen bethel
The invisible seeks a shape . . .
Sunday, April 6, 2025. It's Sol's day . . . and Old Sol is hiding behind snowy clouds. TulseyTown is cold, damp, even wet for most of the day, clearing up toward its end.
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work...” – Wendell Berry
It has been easy during most of our lifetimes to say you are a progressive or say you are for social justice or say you’re for free speech and not have to pay a price for it … Now we’re at one of those moments where, you know what? It’s not enough just to say you’re for something; you may actually have to do something. – Barack Obama, at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, 4.3.25.
...creativity is the counter-balance response to the vapid un-creating happening around us. These in-between times are not a pause between what was and what is coming...We are not simply waiting in the liminal; we are living inside the paradox itself...The emerging new stories literally and necessarily (and mysteriously) are birthed in the stink of the composting old ones...[emerging] through the edge-walkers, the mystics, the healers, the artists and earth-listeners. Those who are courageous enough to stay awake—to hold the tension, to live fully in the paradox—and not turn away. – Victoria Loorz, Living in a Holy Paradox, online at Wild Spirituality.
What do you learn to ignore and what do you learn to love? What needs to die in your life and what do you need to affirm unreservedly? These two questions are the heart of desert spirituality. A radical foundation. – Fr. Richard Rohr, Mediations, The Center for Action and Contemplation, 4.6.25
Everything invisible seeks a shape... I write to understand. Sometimes I glimpse connections only when I read the poem I’ve written. – Judith Tate O'Brien, “Why We Need Bodies,” Rattle, April 5, 2025.