Impermanence

 

(clicking imbiggens)

via shhh, it's fine

Chaos Theory

 

(clicking imbiggens)

Bringing order out of chaos is probably why I enjoy playing solitaire.

Hokku

 

Not grown to a butterfly
this late in autumn
a caterpillar

~Bashō

After 12:00

Full lyrics HERE.

I love his delivery.

Moby often covers other people's songs in the same style, sort of a minor-key monotone.

Zeami

Two from Zeami Motokiyo:

 

Keep it a secret, it's a flower

⁜

Never forget your original intentions

 

Golden Richards

Former Dallas Cowboys receiver Golden Richards has died at the age of 73 (source).

He was amazing.  On third down everybody knew the Cowboys were going shotgun formation and that Roger Staubach was going to throw to Golden Richards.

And he still got open and made the catch more often than not.

I don't care about football anymore, but I lived and died with the Cowboys all those years ago.

Smile

 

(clicking imbiggens)

I have no context for this image, I just like it.

Icon

 

(Clicking Imbiggens)

The image on top is a religious icon that has been in Mona's family for generations.

The image on the bottom is just some weird thing I stumbled across on the internet that I thought looked familiar.

In both images my favorite thing is the way Jesus is grasping his mother's thumb.

Space

 

I don't have a source, but Pema Chödrön has given talks on that topic.

I'm tired of tomorrow…

Full lyrics HERE.

One of his saddest, and that's saying something.

 

Old

John Lennon said once that The Beatles could never regroup because it would just be four old guys who used to be The Beatles.  

And I get what he was saying.  

But Old Beatles would have been glorious.

I Remember

This was an experiment that really paid off:  silky smooth soul blended with spoken word.

Wherever you're going, I'm going your way…

Full lyrics HERE.

"We Shall Get There One Day."

Excerpted from The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne, ©1928:

By the time it came to the edge of the Forest, the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly.  For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, "There is no hurry.  We shall get there some day."  But all the little streams higher up in the Forest went this way and that, quickly, eagerly, having so much to find out before it was too late.

And that reminded me of this:

The Negro Speaks of Rivers
by Langston Hughes

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
     flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
     went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
     bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Of Course You Are

Excerpted from The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne, ©1928:

For a long time they looked at the river beneath them, saying nothing, and the river said nothing too, for it felt very quiet and peaceful on this summer afternoon.

"Tigger is all right really," aid Piglet lazily.

"Of course he is," said Christopher Robin.

"Everybody is really," said Pooh.  "That's what I think," said Pooh.  "But I don't suppose I'm right," he said.

"Of course you are," said Christopher Robin.

Maybe Lemmy's Right

 

It's so hard not to get discouraged when every four years we find ourselves voting for the lesser of two evils.

Marcus

The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus seems to be having a moment.  Quotations are popping up all over the internet.

The book is in the  public domain, and you can read it online or download a copy for free from Project Gutenberg HERE, or from Standard Ebooks HERE.

Past Lives

If you liked the Before Sunrise/Before Sunset/ Before Midnight trilogy, then I think you'll like this one.  It's in the same vein.

Mona didn't like it, but I think a lot of that was because it wasn't what she expected.  It's being marketed as a romance, which I guess it is, but it's not a happily-ever-after romance.  It's not that at all.

I keep tellin' you…

 

You're the one that I'm dreamin' of…

I love the dancers:

 Full lyrics HERE.

Roll Away…

Full lyrics available at The Annotated Grateful Dead, HERE.

Hey! Hey! Hey!

I don’t know if you’d call it a “game” or a “joke” or just “something we did,” but when we were ten years old it was one way we’d pass the time.

First you get someone’s undivided attention and get them to ask, “What?”  You could do it either by catching them off-guard or with persistence:

“Hey Tim!”

“What?”

or,

“Tim! Tim! Tim! Tim! Hey Tim! Tim!

“What!?”

Then you’d answer, in the lowest, most grown-up voice your ten-year-old Adam’s apple could muster:

“You ugly.”

Then everyone would laugh until their sides hurt, because the fifth-grade is a time when life is simple and laughter comes easily.

She Cannot Win

He Tells Her
by Wendy Cope

He tells her that the earth is flat--
He knows the facts, and that is that.

In altercations fierce and long
She tries her best to prove him wrong.

But he has learned to argue well.
He calls her arguments unsound
And often asks her not to yell.
She cannot win.  He stands his ground.

The planet goes on being round.

Habit

"If you are not in the habit of seeing the divinity in all things, you can start by making a simple request within your own mind:  'Show me the divinity in this moment.'  Whether you're taking a walk in the forest, or trapped in a stressful meeting, or lying in a hospital bed, you can always make this request:  'Please show me the divinity that exists right here, right now.'  And the simple act of asking to see beauty can change your life.  You begin to see everything that exists as part of the Divine Mother.  Even the negative experiences in your life are part of this divinity.  They were supposed to happen, and they are perfect as well.  Every experience that you have is perfect."  ~don Jose Ruiz, The Shaman's Path to Freedom ©2023

Learn To

 

(clicking imbiggens)

You Come Too

“ペット飼ってる人には通じると思うんだけど、ご飯ほしい、お水ほしい、撫でてほしい、遊んでほしい、さんぽいきたい、外に出たい、を手始めとしてだんだん何を求めているかが分かるようになるじゃないですか。本日私は飼い猫の「ひなたぼっこをするから、お前も来い」を習得しました。”  ~酉丸／boothにて通販中さんのツイート / 

 ❇

“I think this is familiar to people who have pets, but they start by asking for food, water, petting, playing with, going for a walk, going outside, etc., and then gradually you become more aware of what they want. Isn't that so? Today, I learned how my cat says, `I'm going to bask in the sun, so you can come too.' ”  ~Tweet by Torimumaru

The End and the Beginning

The End and the Beginning
by Wislawa Szymborska
from The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry, 1996
translation: Stanislaw Baranczak & Clare Cavanaugh

After every war
someone’s got to tidy up.
Things won’t pick
themselves up, after all.

Someone’s got to shove
the rubble to the roadsides
so the carts loaded with corpses
can get by.

Someone’s got to trudge
through sludge and ashes,
through the sofa springs,
the shards of glass,
the bloody rags.

Someone’s got to lug the post
to prop the wall,
someone’s got to glaze the window,
set the door in its frame.

No sound bites, no photo opportunities
and it takes years.
All the cameras have gone
to other wars.

The bridges need to be rebuilt,
the railroad stations, too.
Shirt sleeves will be rolled
to shreds.

Someone, broom in hand,
still remembers how it was.
Someone else listens nodding
his unshattered head.
But others are bound to be bustling nearby
who’ll find all that
a little boring.

From time to time someone still must
dig up a rusted argument
from underneath a bush
and haul it off to the dump.

Those who knew
what this was all about
must make way for those
who know little.
And less than that.
And at last nothing less
than nothing.

Someone’s got to lie there
in the grass that covers up
the causes and effects
with a cornstalk in his teeth,
gawking at clouds.

I Wish You

Está vez no voy a desearte feliz
año nuevo .
Eso ya lo hace todo el mundo ,
(incluído yo) .
Hoy te deseo muchas otras cosas
Te deseo coraje para decir basta ,
Te deseo que olvides a quién se olvidó de ti ,
Te deseo que puedas cerrar puertas
y abrir ventanas ,
Te deseo que no te conformes que no te quedes con la culpa ,
Te deseo que te atrevas ,
Te deseo ojeras y risas ,
Te deseo locura y magia ,
También te deseo errores para aprender ,
Te deseo viento , para dejarte llevar ,
Te deseo chispa en la mirada ,
Colores para los días grises ,
Paraguas y refugio para las tormentas , lluvia para calarte
Y sol para calentarte ,
Te deseo muchos te echo de menos ,
Te deseo abrazos de los que duran … .

✩✩✩

This time I'm not going to wish you happy
new Year .
Everyone already does that,
(included me) .
Today I wish you many other things
I wish you the courage to say enough is enough,
I wish you to forget who forgot you,
I wish you that you can close doors
and open windows,
I wish you that you do not settle, that you do not stay with the guilt,
I wish you to dare,
I wish you dark circles and laughter,
I wish you madness and magic,
I also wish you mistakes to learn,
I wish you wind, to let you go,
I wish you a spark in your eyes,
Colors for gray days,
Umbrella and shelter for storms, rain to soak you
And sun to warm you,
I wish you many, "I miss yous,"
I wish you hugs that last...

~Joaquín Sabina

We Are All Made of Stars

Excerpted from A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, ©2003:

They (atoms) are also fantastically durable.  Because they are so long lived, atoms really get around.  Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you.  We are each so anatomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms-- up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested-- probably once belonged to Shakespeare.  A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name.  (The personages have to be historical, apparently, as it takes the the atoms some decades to become thoroughly redistributed; however much you may wish it, you are not yet one with Elvis Presley.)

 And that reminded me of this:

Full lyrics HERE.

Poor

 

It's not as original as they'd have you believe.

The "child in the body of an adult" trope has been done a thousand times before: Freaky Friday, Big, the first ten years of Robin Williams' filmography.

They disguised it with a ton of nudity and gore and wrapped it in a Wes Anderson aesthetic, but ultimately it just doesn't work.

I was bored.

 

Disassembled

 "I have this strange feeling that I'm not myself anymore.  It's hard to put into words, but I guess it's like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again.  That sort of feeling."  ~Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart ©2001

What if?

 

What if your markers of success were how well you slept at night?
How many books you read?
How easily you laughed?
How much time you spent storytelling, feeling warm in the arms and homes of people you adore?

~ Emmie Rae

Currency

 

 

44gemz is on Tumblr, HERE.