Waiting for the moon . . .
Monday, April 13, 2026. It's the Moon's day … Moderate to strong Southerlies are in the forecasts for Green Country and TulseyTown. An afternoon in the 80's with mixed clouds and sun.
“A finger points to the moon. What are you looking at?”
No teacher or text can give you enlightenment; awakening can only be experienced directly. Words are a raft you can use to get to the other shore, but then let them go. Ultimately, there’s no way to explain direct experience.
The creative path can feel remarkably distant and elusive: to create is to betray your home and set off into a distant unknown place. That's why, sometimes, we feel stuck and alienated from the very work we are trying to embrace. – David Whyte, “The Creative Path.” This is an invitation to a three-Sundays workshop in May with Whyte and Rick Rubin. Fee based, but Whyte's invite provides real insight which is why I elected to post it.
The week ahead. – Joyce Vance, in Civil Discourse
Over the weekend, Trump bashed Pope Leo and then took credit for the Pontiff's selection. The Pope, showing his Chicago inheritance did not back down.
Yesterday in 1861, at 4:30 a.m. Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter and the American Civil War began. – Heather Cox Richardson in Letters From An American.
How did we get here, and what can we do about it? It’s time to eschew the myths that contributed to the reelection of the most dangerous person ever to occupy the White House. – Robert Reich, Sunday Thought.
Today is the birthdate of Thomas Jefferson. He was born in 1743, Shadwell, Virginia.
The Irish playwright, author, critic and Nobel Prize laureate Samuel Beckett was born today in 1906 Foxrock, County Dublin, Ireland. He is best remembered for his play Waiting for Godot. Yers trooley had the good fortune to have acted and directed in Godot several times over the years.
Eudora Welty was born on this day in 1909 Jackson, Mississippi. Novelist, short story writer, Pulitzer Prize and Presidential Medal of Freedom laureate.
And, it's the birthdate of the British/American author and social critic Christopher Hitchens, born in 1949 Portsmouth, England.
The wildness of mind that we experience when we sit quietly, noticing our body and breathing for five minutes, is the result of everything we’ve been doing before those five minutes. That wildness is a habit. Regularly taking five can go a long way toward an equinamity – a higher quality habit.
Finding a place to stand. – Fr. Richard Rohr, Meditations, at The Center for Action and Contemplation. 4.12.26.
Watermelon season . . .
Sunday, April 12, 2026. It's Sol's day . . . Tired ol' Sol is sleeping in today, behind rain clouds. Strong Southerlies and rain are forecasted for Green Country and TulseyTown today. Mid 70's afternoon as the rain abates leaving clouds for the rest of the day.
The genius of the Buddha—the Indian prince Siddhartha—and many who followed him was the realization that the mind is not static. It is living, breathing, evolving.
The word sin has so many unhelpful connotations in most of our minds that it’s very problematic today. . .it connotes naughty behavior and personal moral unworthiness. But these are merely symptoms and not the state itself. – Fr. Richard Rohr, An Illusion of Separateness, Meditations, at The Center for Action and Contemplation.
Teresa of Avila is one of the great advocates and models of the power of simply sitting for a few minutes each day in silence and stillness, and striking up a conversation with the One who is waiting to love us unconditionally, the One who will never leave us, the One who is not different from the essence of who we truly are. – Mirabai Starr, The Way of Imperfection, 4.4.26
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt – FDR as he was called – afflicted with polio, died in office on this day in Warm Springs, Florida at a retreat he had created for polio victims.
The success of a polio vaccine, developed by Jonas Salk, was announced on this day in 1955.
Yesterday, after marathon peace talks, the U.S. and Iran failed to reach agreement.
Today is the birthday of Tom Clancy. The novelist (The Hunt for Red October among many) was born in 1947 Baltimore, Maryland.
David Letterman is 79 today. The longest-serving late-night talk show host in American television history was born in 1947, Indianapolis, Indiana.
And, Herbie Hancock is 85. The inventive pianist, songwriter, bandleader, prolific recording artist and Kennedy Center honoree was born in 1940, Chicago, Illinois.
In this recording, Hancock details the creative impulse for one of this most famous compositions – Watermelon Man – to Elvis Costello before a large crowd (in 2008 Chicago, I think).
Backward into the future sad party . . .
Saturday, April 11, 2026. It's the Satyr's day … so much for yesterday's 20% rain chance that turned into 100% frog-strangler shortly after our posting. Okieland weather. For what it's worth, forecasts for Green Country today indicate a 50/50 chance for afternoon thunderstorms scattered about the area, including TulseyTown. Moderate Southerlies and low 80's, so says the wet weatherfeather which indicates storms possible overnight and 99% tomorrow.
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. –Soren Kierkegaard
All events, no matter how preimagined, are unforeseen. Likewise, all expectations, all plans, are merely conceptions in the present. . .consciousness unfolds on a “blind and backward course” where each step is not seen as it is taken but only immediately after it has been taken. Consciousness is in the immediate.
It feels like something shifted in the United States this week. – Heather Cox Richardson in Letters From An American.
Robert Reich has a great idea on how to counter Trump's 10-billion suit against us: We sue him.
Yesterday was the birthdate for two of film's great actors. Max von Sydow was born in 1929, Lund, Sweden; and Omar Sharif was born in 1932, Alexandria, Egypt.
Today is the birthdate of writer Dorothy Allison. Born in 1949 Greenville, South Carolina. She's the author of Bastard Out Of Carolina.
And, poet Mark Strand was born today in 1934 Summerside on Prince Edward Island, Canada.
From the Long Sad Party
Someone was saying
something about shadows covering the field, about
how things pass, how one sleeps towards morning
and the morning goes.
Someone was saying
how the wind dies down but comes back,
how shells are the coffins of wind
but the weather continues.
It was a long night
and someone said something about the moon
shedding its white
on the cold field, that there was nothing ahead
but more of the same.
Someone mentioned
a city she had been in before the war, a room with two
candles
against a wall, someone dancing, someone watching.
We began to believe
the night would not end.
Someone was saying the music was over and no one had
noticed.
Then someone said something about the planets, about the
stars,
how small they were, how far away.
— Mark Strand, “From the Long Sad Party,” in The Late Hour Atheneum, 1973.