O that loony moon . . .
Monday, July 28, 2025. It's the Moon's day … and a silver sliver of her may shine over head after dark and near the west horizon late evening before midnight. Forecasts indicate 100+º for the next three days near TulseyTown. Hot, humid, Southerlies. Thursday, a break.
The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance, beginning with yourself as the magnificent being as you were created and continue to be, and extending to all beings everywhere. Make of your practice a continuous stream. – Jaan Chah, “Make Your Practice a Continuous Stream”
Today is the birthdate of poet John Ashbery. Born in 1927 in Rochester, New York, in his career he received nearly every major American award for poetry.
It's also the birthday of poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins, born in 1844 Stratford, near London.
Do you have one of those to-do lists that never gets done? You check off two boxes and three more spring up in their place. They collide and compete for prominence, sending your nervous system into a continuous low-level state of fight or flight. Where is Spirit in all this? What happened to your image of yourself as the serene yogi meditating on the mountaintop?
There is no mountaintop. There is no yogi. There is only beautiful you—taking out the compost and changing the tire, paying your internet bill and submitting your business plan. The to-do list is written in a secret code. If you look closely, you'll see the divine name forming in the smoke rising from the very thing you didn't get done. Spirit is everywhere, permeating everything.-- Marabai Starr
The Loon On Oak-Head Pond
cries for three days, in the gray mist,
cries for the north it hopes it can find.
[...]
you come every afternoon, and wait to hear it.
you sit a long time, quiet, under the thick pines,
in the silence that follows,
as though it were your own twilight,
as though it were your own vanishing song.
– Mary Oliver, The Loon On Oak-Head Pond, House of Light, Beacon Press. 1992.
The possibility of “all.”
Sunday, July 27, 2025. It's Sol's day … These days, it seems Sol is insistent that we recognize him. As if we needed help. What? Sol has no memory, he's too busy burning up.
Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Disappointment is a misunderstood mercy. – David Whyte, -from Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words, Many Rivers Press, 2025.
The Buddhist vision of Indra's Net predates today's Cosmic Web by some 1400 years.
Taking pages from George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 (among yesterday’s blog topics), Trump is full-on attempting to re-write history for his legacy's name-sake. – Joyce Vance, Civil Discourse, synchronistically yesterday.
The Temple of Your Life: Gifts from creatives in mediated forms. – Mirabai Starr. The first thought that came to me following Mirabai's video invite was “Babette's Feast,” a small, perfectly executed 1987 Danish film directed by Gabriel Axel with an international cast and crew. The screenplay, written by Axel, was based on the story by Isak Dinesen. It became the first Danish film to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. If you've never seen it, find a way. If you remember it, seen it again for your tenth time. It's only been around for coming on 40 years.
The cold-hard-facts of the rabbit-hole . . .
Saturday, July 26, 2025. It's the Satyr's day . . . The heat-hammer continues to fall on TulseyTown. Forecasts include heat warnings with indices to 109º by mid afternoon. Walter, my go-to lawn tamer did his magic yesterday morning from 8 'til 10. He said he quits his gigs no later than noon these days. Wise man.
If a peregrin sees fifty times better than we, what do we look like to them?
– Jim Harrison, In Search of Small Gods, Copper Canyon Press. 2009
From the “cold, hard facts” file...
Gavin Newsom yesterday posted some stats Fox News would rather you not know:
52 million jobs have been created since the Cold War.
Democratic administrations created 50 million.
Republican administrations created 1.9 million.
Republican Presidents have one thing in common: recession.
In a stuffed maibox today...
The Nobel Prize laureate Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, was born today in 1856 Dublin,
The founder of analytic psychology Carl Jung, saw the light of day on this plane of existence in 1875 Kesswil, Switzerland.
It's the birthdate of Stanley Kubrick. The film director/producer/writer/cinematographer was born in 1928, Bronx, New York.
Helen Mirren celebrates her 90th birthday today. The Royal Shakespeare Company and multi-award laureat actress was born today in 1945, London, England.
Humorist Jean Shepherd was born in 1921 Chicago, Illinois.
And, the English author, Aldous Huxley, who gave us Brave New World, was born on this day in 1894 Godalming, Surrey, England.
Down a rabbit-hole:
Brave New World is often compared with George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, since they each offer a view of a dystopian future. "What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. – Cultural critic Neil Postman, author of Amusing Ourselves to Death, Penguin, 2005.