Friday by convention marks an end of the work week. As to reality – contemporary societies depend upon labor 24×7, with no general “half-time”, otherwise known as the day-of-rest in traditional Christian cultures. The religious label is borrowed from the Jewish practice of the sabbath. Christians rebranded by asserting that Sunday was the day…
What to write? Morning dawns in majesty, sun on the horizon as a god, blazing with light and life. A retention pond at the rear of Starbucks where I customarily begin each day, is stunning in reflective stillness. The sky is brought down to earth: heaven & earth. There’s a white egret who sometimes…
Living at this time, but wait, – to be alive at any time in the arc of human habitation on this planet — seemed/seems hard. How else to put the matter. Living well in the “thrownness” of indifferent circumstances is a formidable challenge. That said, we “lucky” ones, recipients of higher strata of education…
Perhaps you’ve not had occasion to read one of the translations of the Odyssey. I have not. Perhaps a suitable on-ramp for reading the text is a viewing of Christopher Nolan’s film, which features Matt Damon as Odysseus. Odysseus in Homer’s tale is the king of legendary Ithaca, an island kingdom in the Ionian…
Saturday with a gentle rain. For the past two or three days it has rained off and on. Meteorologists describe a heat dome parked over the midwest, circulating humidity, moisture-laden air, elevated heat, interfacing with cooler flows, thus rain and sometimes high winds. So, plans are adjusted to the prevailing outdoor conditions; I lingered…
Vs. 20 Yes and no Are they so different? Good and bad Are they so far apart? What others fear I must fear too Such recklessness! Without and end! Most people are merry making and happy As though celebrating the Great Sacrifice And climbing a lookout in the spring I alone am unmoved! Like…
Waking again to the light of a rising sun I have no complaint. I expect today will exceed my expectations. It would be well to expect as little as possible, to have a general, somewhat vague sense of direction. Then I could respond to events, to people, with curiosity, most often with delight. Not…
A cloud shrouded sultry August morning… Another day begins. I realized that I inadvertently missed an appointment yesterday. No matter the note written in my day-timer, my memory is no longer as reliable as in my youth. I imagined the appointment for today’s afternoon. Therefore an apology is called for. I will apologize and…
Vs. 52 The beginning of everything is the mother of everything Truly to know the mother is to know her children, and truly to know her children is to turn back to the mother. The body comes to its ending but there is nothing to fear. Close the openings shut the doors, and to…
“Spontaneously so”means literally “self-soing” or “self-deriving.” We might play with this rather literal meaning…by substituting “sow” and “sew” for “so,”thereby evoking the protean images of “husbanding and cultivating” a world, and “tailoring” of it to suit both one’s own proclivitiesand those of one’s context. Dao De Ching, A Philosophical Translation by Roger T. Ames…
