James Bethel James Bethel

Beauty medicine . . .

Tuesday, July 8, 2025. It's Tiw's day . . . Yesterday, TulseyTown received a long afternoon of rain into early evening. Today's forecasts are a near Xerox of yesterday's: Light breezes, mixed clouds and sun, near 90's with a 30% chance for more rain this afternoon. We shall see.

Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it. André Gide,

The light beyond sight.Corey S Powell , in Aeon,

Alaska is crying over the Trump budget they voted for. Oklahoma may not be far behind.

Amid the firehose of negatives surrounding you, Tara Brach asked in an online video, “do you have a longing to trust your goodness?”

[The] aesthetic principle is ontologically prior to us. It is inherent in the cosmos. – James Hillman, cited by Sophie Strand in “Beauty Medicine,” Make Me Good Soil, 7.8.25 online.

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James Bethel James Bethel

The hounds of love . . .

Monday, July 7, 2025. It's the Moon's day … Easy Southerlies are to bring another Okieland hot summer day to TulseyTown today. A few clouds and low 90's with enough humidity to push the indices up another 7 degrees by mid afternoon.

We’re not anyone in particular. Every moment, in response to the conditions in front of us, another person, the sky, the flowers, we are created again. That’s who we are: our relationship to everyone and everything in this moment. – Norman Fischer

Dates

Painter Marc Chagall was born in 1887, now in Belarus. Science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein was born in 1907, Butler, Missouri. And, historian and narrator David McCullough was born in 1933, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The flotsam and jetsam in the eddies of the Watercourse are growing ever more ugly as Trump's police state takes hold of the nation.

Robert Reich outlines changes coming sooner than later. Joyce Vance offers a view of The Week Ahead, in Civil Discourse.

Do what you can to support the ACLU, Common Cause, PBS/NPR, and other anti-disinformation organizations. Keep an eye on the impact Big Ugly has to your personal well-being, food budget and the like and let your representatives know about difficulties.

The trees! In the trees!

– for Vincent...and Kate Bush

What moulting is to birds, humans experience

hard times. This period of moulting can

last a good while, even beyond

recoverable.

Not to be done in public, this

rarely lends to cheerful entertainment

or socially appropriate

smiles.

It is possible to emerge renewed

but between then and then it's rather

a matter of making oneself

scarce.

I've taken VanGogh's path to an active

melancholy rebelling against the fork at yesterday's road

signpost that read “This way to stagnant

despair.”

While there are heavy clouds this morning

and the weatherfeather sees more rain methinks

East winds blow hope and aspiration into the leaves

of those trees.

— jab

The Hounds of Love

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James Bethel James Bethel

Leave a dime on the sidewalk . . .

Sunday, July 6, 2025 . It's Sol's day . . . Moderate Southerlies and a cloudy morning bring sunshine to the forecasts shared with clouds this afternoon with a 50/50 chance for rain near sundown. Upper 80's.

Today is the 90th birthday of Tenzin Gayatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. Born in 1935, Taktser, Tibet, he is the first Dalai Lama to become a global figure, largely for his advocacy of Buddhism and of the rights of the people of Tibet .

This is the day in 1942 that Anne Frank and her family went into hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam.

Painter and feminist icon Frida Kahlo was born on this day in 1907, Coyoacán, Mexico.

If our inner journey does not match and lead to an outer journey of liberation for all, we have no true freedom or “salvation.” That is what liberation theology is honest enough to point out. – Fr. Richard Rohr, Meditations, The Center for Action and Contemplation.

The egoism of the rich presents a more serious problem than Communism. – Brazilian Archbishop Dom Hélder Câmara

Sometimes all it takes

to be happy

is a dime on the sidewalk.

[…]

How is it that the rich always know

what is best for the poor?

– Jim Harrison and/or Ted Kooser, Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry. Copper Canyon Press, 2003.

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