Love stole my prayer beads . . .

Sunday, August 3, 2025. It's Sol's day . . . Light Southerlies are in the forecasts for TulseyTown today, with overcast skies and mid 80's. Yes, it is early August. That said, these recent cool mornings with the noisy geese flying overhead are reminders that there is a Fall to come.

All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone. – Blaise Pascal , Pensées, the Édition de Port-Royal, 1670

Jedi mind training for the rest of us. – Jeff Krasno, 8.2.25

Birthdays

Rupert Brooke was born on this day in 1887 Warwickshire, England.

"If I should die, think only this of me, / That there's some corner of a foreign field / That is forever England." – “The Soldier”– Rupert Brooke

The author of “Exodus,” Leon Uris, was born in 1924 Baltimore, Maryland.

One of America's first embedded reporters, Ernie Pyle, was born in 1900 near Dana, Indiana.

And, Martha Stewart is 84 today. The entrepreneur maven was born in 1941,Jersey City , New Jersey

Our secrets sometimes feel so vile and hopeless that we should all jump off a cliff. – Anne Lamott, “The Thorn Is A Gift,” in Meditations, The Center for Action and Contemplation, 8.1.25.

Love, You Stole My Prayer Beads

Love, You stole my prayer beads

and gave me poetry.

[…]

What mountain can withstand your winds?

[…]

We are blind men under a blue sky.

[…]

Saints...move unrecognized through the market.

Unseen, the soul moves through the world.

Praising You, we praise ourselves.

Whoever praises the sun

praises the eyes that see.

Praise is an ocean.

Our words, a boat on the waves.

[…]

Tender waves carry us.

– Rumi, in Water, transl by Haleh Lza Gafori, New York Review Books, 2025

The distrust of educated independent minds . . .

Saturday, August 2, 2025. It's the Satyr's day . . . Northeasterlies are forecasted to bring back some sunshine amidst some clouds over TulseyTown today. A cool morning and warm afternoon.

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. [Then you discover] that the things that torment the most [are] the very things that connect [us] with all the people who are alive, who have ever been alive.”
―James Baldwin, quote from a profile interview for LIFE magazine, published in 1963.

… while the job numbers have looked good, in fact the economy has been weakening for months . . . Predictably, Trump lashed out. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American, posted last night.

Isabel Allende turns 83 today. The sometimes “magical realist” novelist was born in 1942 Lima, Peru.

Mary-Louise Parker is 61 today. The multi laureate award winning actor was born in 1964, Fort Jackson, South Carolina. She's a product of the North Carolina School for the Arts.

Today is also the birthdate of Peter O’Toole. Another laureate award actor, he was born in 1932, Leeds, Yorkshire, England.

And, it's James Baldwin's birthday. The essayist, novelist, and playwright was born in 1924 poverty-stricken Harlem, New York.

“It is very nearly impossible to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.”
―James Baldwin, essay in The Creative Process, UCLA, 1963.

Praising art monsters . . .

Friday, August 1, 2025. It's Fria's (Frigg's) day . . .A good four-hour visited rain TulseyTown this morning. Forecasts indicate Northerlies with cloudy and much cooler conditions throughout the weekend and for the first few days of the coming week before the heat dome returns.

Nearly everything we are taught is false except how to read. – Jim Harrison

Novelist Herman Melville was born on this day in New York City (1819

Keeping track of Trump's narcicissm. – Heather Cox Richardson, in yesterday evening's Letters From An American.

A tragic moment for the judiciary.-- Joyce Vance, Civil Discourse, 7.31.25.

Happy U.S. birthday, Colorado.

In Praise of Art Monsters. – Sophie Strand, in Make Me Good Soil, 8.1.25.

Another Country

I love these raw moist dawns with

a thousand birds you hear but can't

quite see in the mist.

My old alien body is a foreigner

struggling to get into another country.

The loon call makes me shiver.

Back at the cabin I see a book

and am not quite sure what that is.

– Jim Harrison, "Another Country" from Dead Man’s Float. Copper Canyon Press, 2016.