Seeing in the dark . . .

Tuesday, August 12, 2025. It's Tiw's day . . . After overnight thunderstorms, rain chances diminish for TulseyTown today but remain into tonight. Cooler, in the upper 80's. No wind to speak of. Mixed cloud cover. A slow return to the heat tomorrow and into the weekend. If you find yourself somewhere other than TulseyTown with its cloud cover, you might get to see the Perseids meteor shower. The sky show reaches its peak on tonight through Wednesday morning.

The gift of darkness.

We forget that darkness is always present alongside the light. We know the light most fully in contrast with its opposite... There is something that can only be known by going through [that “dark night of the soul.”] … In many ways, the struggle with darkness has been the church’s constant dilemma...It does not like the shadowland of our human reality. – Fr. Richard Rohr, Meditations, The Center for Action and Meditation.

Trump's declaration of a public safety emergency in Washington, D.C., taking control of the Metropolitan Police and announcing his intent to bring the National Guard, is unique, and it’s important for us to understand what it is and what it isn’t. D.C. is not New York or Chicago. – Joyce Vance, Civil Discorse.

Heather Cox Richardson offered her perspective on Trump's power grab, in Letters From An American, posted last night.

Today is the birth date of Erwin Schrödinger. The Nobel laureate – for his contributions to physics and the fundamentals of quantum mechanics – was born in 1887, Vienna, Austria.

And, one of the founders of American cinema, Cecil B. DeMille, was born on this day in 1881, Ashfield, Massachusetts.

Night Creatures

Poetry brings light to the night creatures

who, exposed, scutter away into corners

fearful of being shown their identities.

At first blush,

silence may be about death

but it is also about peace.

Perhaps it is that poems are not so much about silence

as much as they imply to those elements of darkness

an allowance -

the silence of ourselves -

to be exposed to the light

even if there are no words.

– jab

Healing the present . . .

Monday, August 11, 2025. It's the Moon's day … now waning. A cooler day for TulseyTown with moderate Southerlies and increasing clouds.

Hope is a not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart – Vaclav Havel, quoted by Robert Reich, “Workiing for the Good,” online 9.10.25

Trump has invited Putin to a meeting in Alaska on August 15th. Let that sink in. The Russian dictator invited to U.S. soil. This in spite of Putin having been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, including the theft of Ukrainian children with the expectation that he be arrested and tried for these crimes should he step outside of Russian territory. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American.

Climate migration hits the U.S.

An antidote to today's anxiety designed environment. – Jeff Krasno and Dan Harris, long but worthy chat session.

[Not a quick fix]

For this 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, in To Bless the Space Between Us, Doubleday, 2008.

Better late than later ...

Sunday, August 10, 2025. It's Sol's day . . . Sol's heat-hammer is relentless:100º+ indices continue with windy Southerlies. Somewhat cooler conditions are in the forecasts ahead. The August Sturgeon Moon is full over TulseyTown.

A thought: Is just a thought.

God may be reached and held close by means of love, but by means of thought never. – from “The Cloud of Unknowing,” cited by Richard Rohr in Meditations, The Center for Action and Contemplation, 3.25.25

Many Christians never consciously chose the Republican Party. They were handed a package deal to follow Jesus and vote Republican, and that's that. Until someone like Trump came along, that's when the dissonance became impossible to ignore. – Pastor Doug Pagitt in Rolling Stone 7/13/25.

The United States of America is based not on religion but on the law. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American.

What's missing in most Christian churches? A wise rabbi. – Cynthia Bourgeault, in Meditations, The Center for Action and Contemplation, 8.4.25

As once the winged energy of delight
carried you over childhood's dark abysses,
now beyond your own life build the great
arch of unimagined bridges.
[…]

Take your practiced powers and stretch them out
until they span the chasm between two
contradictions…For god
wants to know himself in you.

– Rainer Maria Rilke, “As Once the Winged Energy of Delight,” transl Robert Bly.