Excerpted from Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, ©1997:
He's delighted to read what the mayor of Naples says about driving there. Naples is the most chaotic city for drivers on earth. Ed loved it-- he got to drive on the sidewalk while the pedestrians filled the streets. "A green light is a green light, avanti, avanti," the mayor explained. "A red light-- just a suggestion." And yellow? he was asked. "Yellow is for gaiety."
And that reminded me of this:This is the time to be slow
by John O’Donohue, in From To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings, ©2008
via Jules of NatureThis is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.
“At some point deep in our evolutionary past,” Ms. Kraus explains, natural selection gave us the ability to sense pressure changes with our ears. We developed body parts that “turn the air movement caused by a vibrating guitar string or a spoken word” into something meaningful.
That's an excerpt from a book review posted to the Wall Street Journal. You can read it HERE.
The book doesn't interest me, but those two sentences opened a door. If sound vibrations became "something meaningful" only once we evolved the tools to experience them, then perhaps we are surrounded by other, equally amazing stimuli that we just aren't able to perceive.
Yet.
Excerpted from Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, ©1997:
The tailor does not wear glasses and his stitches could be done by mice. In his desk shop with the sewing machine by the window and the spools lined up on the sill, I see a new white bicycle, a water bottle attached for long trips, nifty leather saddlebags over the back wheel. When I see him later, though, he is only in the town park, feeding three stray cats food from his saddlebags. He unwraps the scraps they are so clearly expecting. He and I are the only ones out on Sunday morning, when most people who live here are doing something else. When I gave him my pants to hem last week, he showed me a circle of photos tacked up on the back wall. His young wife with parted lips and wavy, parted hair. Morta. His mother like an apple doll, also dead. His sister. There was one of him, too, as a young soldier for the Pope, restored to youth, with black hair, his legs apart and shoulders back. He was twenty-five in Rome, the war just ended. Now fifty more years later have passed, everyone gone. He pats the white bicycle. I never thought I'd be the one left.
I had almost given up on this book. I was nearly half way through, and to that point it had only been about rich people buying themselves nice things and cooking themselves gourmet meals.
Then it got better.
Via Sam's Garden:
The Five Precepts of Buddhism
"I believe Gandhi is the only person who knew about real democracy — not democracy as the right to go and buy what you want, but democracy as the responsibility to be accountable to everyone around you. Democracy begins with freedom from hunger, freedom from unemployment, freedom from fear, and freedom from hatred. To me, those are the real freedoms on the basis of which good human societies are based." ~Vandana Shiva
"To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter; to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life." ~John Burroughs
Last year the house across the street from me caught fire, and over the summer it was rebuilt.
Something that caught me by surprise was the sheer number of people who wandered through the construction site just to have a look around. People driving by would stop their cars to get out and satisfy their curiosity.
I wasn't brought up that way. Wandering around somebody else's property is completely alien to me. But apparently here in East Texas it's considered socially acceptable to poke around in somebody else's home. Nobody tried to hide it, nobody behaved as though they were doing anything out of the ordinary.
When I first read that Ahmaud Arbery was seen looking around a construction site, that seemed a bit off to me. Now I know that, at least in the South, it's pretty common and not a big deal.
But I did know from the start he hadn't stolen anything.
Almost everything on a construction site is simply too big to steal. It's not likely anyone is going to wander off with a two-by-four or a piece of sheetrock. Construction workers take their tools home with them at the end of the workday, but even something like a drill or a hammer would have been easily seen in a jogger's hand.
His three killers knew he hadn't taken anything.
This was all about power.
The South, for all it's talk of individual freedom, is extremely authoritarian. They're anti-union because you're supposed to do what the boss tells you to do. They're anti-abortion because you're supposed to do what the preacher tells you to do. When football player Adrian Peterson was charged for whipping his four-year-old child bloody, he had a lot of defenders here because a child is supposed to do what his parents tell him to do.
Ahmoud Arbery was killed because he was supposed to do what the rednecks told him to do-- and disobedience is not tolerated.
This essay written by musician Boz Scaggs after the death of his son is heartbreaking:
My Son's Unfinished Life - And Mine
Newsweek Magazine - February 22, 1999
by Boz ScaggsOn December 31st, 1998, I lost my son Oscar to an accidental heroin overdose. And my world is blown to smithereens. My son – this fine, beautiful, sweet young man – my Oscar is gone from this world. Twenty-one years old. Hooked on the high, the release, that place of no worry about pressures from family or school, or jobs not yet found. And I am trying to put together the pieces of my own life and of his. There are so many unanswered questions when one so young dies suddenly. So many parts of his life were in transition and unresolved. I hardly know how to begin.
I have a dilemma about the role of drugs in our lives, and specifically about the role of heroin in the lives of my son’s generation. A lot of the same drugs were around when I was his age. The challenge to drop out, tear down the walls and live as never before was there in the music, the fashion and fabric of the time. Every generation hears its own call to change the existing order. For many, that includes experimenting with drugs. But the nature of experimentation has changed – then it was primarily a counter-cultural expression; today it’s that and a consumer activity as well.
Recreational drugs far more potent than the pot we smoked in college are marketed like designer underwear, cigarettes, soft drinks, CDs – like equally benign consumer goods, that is. But even among those substances with sure potential to be lethal, heroin belongs in a class of its own. It does not allow casual use for long. Kids believe that if they “only” smoke it or snort it, they won’t get addicted. It’s no wonder that an epidemic of “amateur” use is underway. No surprise either is the large number of accidental deaths being reported: the purity of the drug is so unpredictable.
Heroin used to be an unthinkable choice for all but the hard-core user. It no longer is. If your son or daughter or friend is experimenting with or using heroin in any form, don’t wait to get information and help. Forget your preconceptions about people who “really” use heroin.
From the time my two sons were teenagers, I talked openly with them about drugs. It was a daunting position to be in as a parent, but I told them what I knew from experience. I didn’t blacklist every drug, but described as objectively as I could their effects and consequences. I think we shared more than most parents and children on the subject.
My son Oscar suffered from addiction – given his genetic or psychological makeup, given the world around him, it was perhaps inevitable that he would come to abuse drugs. Countless people suffer from addiction. Many get treatment and learn ways to manage it; they cope with the pain and uncertainty that is part of life, and they live. Oscar experimented with drugs and alcohol throughout his adolescence. In retrospect they clearly interfered with his ability to develop and to function. Heroin brought his dysfunction into high relief – he became aware of the drug taking over and asked for help.
That was a beginning in his recovery. Oscar entered treatment last January. He worked hard in various programs, but the process wasn’t linear or fast – two steps forward, one step back. It was in the last six months that his recovery program began to take on real meaning to Oscar. He was slowly coming to terms with his addiction and recovery. He worked hard. And slowly, Oscar’s life began to fall into place. Given the progress he’d made and the new job he was clearly thriving in, given his new girlfriend and the holidays – well, it proved to be a sort of classic setup, in a clinical sense, for relapse. The confidence of having it all together may have made Oscar feel invulnerable to heroin. Then came payday; he was on his way to pick up tickets for a concert that night, he was dressed in his finest and he decided, I can only guess, to make a stop at his dealer’s and celebrate it all.
Oscar’s death was an accident, a miscalculation. I say this only to underscore the importance of the open discussions from earlier years, the work Oscar did in recovery, the work we, his family, did with him. None of it was for naught; communication never is. For Oscar, recovery work was a real chance at life; for his family it was an experience that changed our lives profoundly. I had always considered my relationship to my sons to be closer than that of any other father and sons I knew. But in these last six months we rediscovered our profound commitment to one another. I saw him without drugs in his system for the first time in years, clear-eyed and healthy, a true joy to be around himself. I began to see my role in Oscar’s addiction and recovery. Oscar had yet to learn fundamentals of self-sustenance, and I had to learn to stand back while he caught up. I had to learn to give without giving, touch without touching, act without acting. I needed more time; the work was unfinished, his and mine.
Konrad Schmid and Jens Schröter have written a fascinating article on how the bible coalesced from early writings.
The oldest scriptures that eventually became the Bible were created within an environment where no appreciable religious function was assigned to texts. The stories, proverbs, songs, and prayers dating from the ninth and eighth centuries bc that researchers have managed to reconstruct from the Bible are examples of literature rather than holy scripture. They evolved into scripture through a lengthy process.
Religious observance centered on local shrines, and contact with the deity was maintained through sacrifices, votive offerings, and prayer.
We live in a world today where every mainstream religion is centered on The Book. Studying and reading from The Book is a central part of their regular observances.
I like the idea of a faith without a textbook, a faith based not on memorization but on intuition and emotion.
You can read their article online at Lapham's Quarterly, HERE.
“There’s always the lingering thought, left in the air, of whether this is goodbye. ” ~Christopher Hitchens (source)
Phillip Adams murdered six people then killed himself. An autopsy showed extensive brain damage from his career in the NFL. From the article at the Huffington Post:
“We cannot say that we are surprised by these results, however it is shocking to hear how severe his condition was,” Adams’ family said in a statement. “After going through medical records from his football career, we do know that he was desperately seeking help from the NFL but was denied all claims due to his inability to remember things and to handle seemingly simple tasks such as traveling hours away to see doctors and going through extensive evaluations.”
If the death and suffering were happening before our eyes-- if the games were stopped to cart off the dead bodies-- this sport would be banned.
The source article is online HERE.
Instruments that sound awesome when played well, but awful when played poorly:
A parable told by Thich Nhat Hanh:
There is a Zen story about a student who felt he hadn’t really received the deepest essence of his master’s teaching, and so he went to question him. His master replied, “On your way here, did you see the cypress in the courtyard?” Perhaps the student was not yet very mindful. The master was saying that if, on the way to see our teacher, we go past a cypress tree or a beautiful plum tree in blossom and we don’t really see it, then when we arrive in front of our teacher, we won’t see our teacher either. We shouldn’t miss any opportunity to really see our cypress tree. There are wonders of life we walk past every day, and yet we haven’t truly seen them. What is the cypress tree on the path you take to work every day? If you cannot even see the tree, how can you see your loved ones? How can you see God?
Every tree, every flower belongs to the Kingdom of God. If the dahlia in bloom does not belong to the Kingdom of God, where does it belong? If we want to have a relationship with God, if we want to understand God, all we need to do is behold the cypress tree on our path.
I read it HERE.
Wayfinder is a fun little app for iPhone/iPad.
It's kind of hard to fit it into a category. It's not a "game," it's more of a "toy." As you explore, flowers bloom in your wake and haikus are generated.
It's put out by The National Film Board of Canada, and is free to download and free of advertising. You can learn about it by visiting their website, HERE.
When we learn that genius was once disguised as a nanny—or a customs inspector or a beggar—nothing quite looks the same. Who else at the local playground is quietly generating breathtaking works of art? Which bank teller or waiter or insurance salesman is sitting on a trove of remarkable paintings or poems or novels? Lurking beneath the plain surface of life roils a torrent of creative potential, unnoticed and quite possibly glorious.
Emily Bobrow has a nice article on posthumous fame published in the Wall Street Journal, which you can read HERE.
Excerpted from the speech "Solitude of Self" delivered by suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton before the Committee of the Judiciary of the United States Congress, Monday, January 18, 1892:
When death sunders our nearest ties, alone we sit in the shadows of our affliction. Alike mid the greatest triumphs and darkest tragedies of life we walk alone. On the devine heights of human attainments, eulogized land worshiped as a hero or saint, we stand alone. In ignorance, poverty, and vice, as a pauper or criminal, alone we starve or steal; alone we suffer the sneers and rebuffs of our fellows; alone we are hunted and hounded thro dark courts and alleys, in by-ways and highways; alone we stand in the judgment seat; alone in the prison cell we lament our crimes and misfortunes; alone we expiate them on the gallows. In hours like these we realize the awful solitude of individual life, its pains, its penalties, its responsibilities; hours in which the youngest and most helpless are thrown on their own resources for guidance and consolation. Seeing then that life must ever be a march and a battle, that each soldier must be equipped for his own protection, it is the height of cruelty to rob the individual of a single natural right.
You can read the speech in its entirety at WikiSource.org, HERE.
Although she was speaking specifically about women’s rights, it’s a nice essay on the importance of education and self-improvement.
It’s worth your time.
This:
Deep Dream Generator is a cool, creative program that takes one image and interprets it through the lens of a second, generating a third.
For example, I gave it this image:
and asked the program to reimagine it through this image:
An illustrative anecdote excerpted from an article about modesty by Nicolas Bommarito:
Jeff hates going to art museums. Not because he doesn’t like art, but because being in that situation stresses him out. He’s always worried that he’s spending too much time in front of the wrong paintings and not enough time in front of the right ones. He’s worried that someone will ask what he thinks about something and he won’t have an impressive-enough answer. He always feels like people are silently judging him as his behaviour reveals that he doesn’t know as much about art as they do.
Jeff’s predicament is a sad one, but it’s also a symptom of a certain self-centred orientation. Jeff presumes that in a room full of great works of art people will be paying attention to him and how much time he spends looking at different paintings. He assumes that, if someone asks him a question, they’re looking to size him up rather than get insight about the art. Jeff’s anxieties stem from a view of the world that put Jeff at the centre. Even the trip to the museum is, for him, less about the art than about Jeff viewing the art.
Part of what is sad about Jeff’s situation is that, in putting himself at the centre, he gets in his own way. Even though he’s in a museum full of great art, Jeff can’t really appreciate any of it. Someone who doesn’t care so much about coming off as smarter or more refined than others can become engrossed in the artworks or be moved by them without the constant distraction of sizing himself up.
You can read the full article online at Aeon, HERE.
"I had bought a very cheap sitar in a shop called India Craft in London, and it fitted on to the song ('Norwegian Wood') and it gave it that little extra thing. Even though the sound of the sitar was bad, they were still quite happy with it. At the same time as I played the sitar, very badly, on the Beatles' record, I began to hear Ravi Shankar's name. The third time, I thought, 'This is an odd coincidence.' I went out and bought some of Ravi's records, put them on, listened to them and it hit a certain spot in me that I can't explain, but it seemed familiar to me. The only way that I can describe it was my intellect didn't know what was going on and yet this other part of me identified with it. It just called on me." ~George Harrisonm in The Beatles Off the Record by Keith Badman, (via)
In an article for The Atlantic titled "When You Can’t Change the World, Change Your Feelings," author Arthur C. Brooks writes:
Between the conditions around you and your response to them is a space. In this space, you have freedom. You can choose to try remodeling the world, or you can start by changing your reaction to it.
He goes on to give some very realistic and down-to-earth advice on how to do just that.
You can read the whole article online HERE.
Well I tried to make it Sunday, but I got so damn depressed
That I set my sights on Monday and I got myself undressed…
This was an important song for me.
When I was a kid, I was told that I was lazy, I was unmotivated, I was a quitter. I believed that I was defective, a cosmic mistake that could never amount to anything.
The opening lyrics to this song was my first inkling that there were other people like me.
I didn't know what "depression" was, yet, but for the first time I knew I wasn't alone. There were other people like me.
And that was huge.
Full lyrics HERE.
"You know those nights when sleep eludes you, and the harder you try to sleep the less you can. You are trying to force yourself to be peaceful, and you feel the resistance inside of you. This same sort of resistance is felt by many people during their first experiences with meditation. The more they try to calm themselves, the more restless they become… This resistance is born out of our very efforts to be peaceful. The effort itself becomes oppressive. Our thoughts and feelings flow like a river. If we try to stop the flow of a river, we will meet the resistance of the water. It is better to flow with it, and then we may be able to guide it in ways we want it to go. We must not attempt to halt it.
"Keep in mind that the river must flow and that we are going to follow it. We must be aware of every little stream that joins it. We must be aware of all the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that arise in us - of their birth, duration, and disappearance. Do you see? Now the resistance begins to disappear. The river of perceptions is still flowing, but no longer in darkness. It is now flowing in the sunlight of awareness. To keep this sun always shining inside of us, illuminating each rivulet, each pebble, each bend in the river, is the practice of meditation. To practice meditation is, first of all, to observe and to follow these details." ~Thich Nhat Hanh
