Jelisava

Today's philosophical thought

This is what life is like sometimes: you're trying to create something beautiful and a stinkbug lands in the middle of it.

Still Life

Mid-day sun on the third floor

"If you put a story on your spoon in your own way, it doesn't matter if it is badly done, the fact that it is individual makes it precious."

~ artist and sculptor Gutzon Borglum (1867-1941)

Beehive here in my heart

Tulips glow in the late winter sun / Dec. 2011

"Last night I dreamed -- blessed illusion --
       that I had a beehive here in my heart
  and that
       the golden bees were making white combs
       and sweet honey from my old failures."

~ Antonio Machado (thanks Mitza)

Two tapping feet

The boots of St. Nicholas and a Merry Christmas to All

"There is a wonderful custom not quite as old as the hills, about children putting their shoes outside their bedroom door before sleeping time, on December 5, in the hope that St. Nicholas will come in the night and put gifts in their feetless shoes. December 6th is his feast day. I still put mine out with the hope that I will wake, put on my shoes, and rejoice in the gift of my two tapping feet alive and well in the morning."

~ Father Michael Doyle

Sun over darkness

On this, the solstice, the precise angle of the morning sun invades the darkest corners of the house / Dec. 22, 2011

Winter solstice, midwinter, the longest night, the first day of winter.

The days now begin to lengthen and the nights shorten -- a victory of the sun over the darkness.

In some ancient cultures a fire was made in the hearth and the personal household gods were invited to join in the festivities. (Have you invited your household gods to a celebration?)

Some Eastern European cultures worshiped the winter mother goddess, Rozhanitsa. In colorful embroideries she was depicted as an antlered woman and offered sacrifices of honey, bread and cheese (how perfectly lovely and peaceful).

"Oh, the rising of the sun ... and the running of the deer ..." (lyrics from The Holly and the Ivy)

Love for all we did have*

Remembering our cousin Major Sam and the relatives there to greet him / Jake and Doris, Irma and Jake, Edna and Eddie, Bee, Bunk, Leonard, Mary, Maggie, gas attendant, Ed, Charlie / Harrisburg, PA, circa 1948 / * Irma wrote this to me in a card years ago

How could I have come so far
(And always on such dark trails!)
I must have traveled by the light
Shining from the faces of all those I have loved.

~ Thomas McGrath

Sublime wonder

Geranium still blooming in December / Dec. 2011

Routinely maneuver yourself into positions where your primal self will be filled up with sublime wonder, mysterious beauty, and smart love.

~ Rob Brezsney

That yearning

Colors on a peaceful late fall morning / New Jersey / Nov. 2011

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up
 
waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through
 
the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,
 
I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,
 
I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.
 
What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss--we want more and more and then more of it.
 
But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep
 
for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

~ What the Living Do by Marie Howe

To love that well

Coming upon the Tree of Heaven on the island made of dredge -- like a little signpost from our Mary, the dear friend of my dear mother and the dear mother of my dear friends / Amico Island / Nov. 2011

"...where late the sweet birds sang..."

~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 73

Be like the trees

Amico Island / Nov. 2011

This was the day of wanting to take time to sit and absorb the beauty of the world. To focus on the moment. To let all the demands take a back seat. To be like the trees and wade into the water and reflect.

Brother Sun who gives us the light of day

Detail of the Brother Sun stained glass window by Benoit Gilsoul gracing the walls of St. Casimir / Nov. 2011

This was the day of Mary who lived 103 years (that's over 37,595 days). A woman who traveled from a small island in the Adriatic where gypsy's taught her how to embroider to Philadelphia where she worked as a seamstress and sewed men's silk shirts to the wilds along the Delaware River where she and Captain Lou built thriving businesses. A woman who was friends with my grandmother when both were members of the Croatian Singing Society. A woman who was devoted to the Blessed Mother and said the rosary every day. Her daughter told my mother I have a picture of you holding my hand when I was a girl and you are as beautiful now as you were then. Her son told my mother that he was 80 years old and yet remembered her father and the way he liked to talk politics.

"... Especially Sir Brother Sun, By whom You give us the light of day! And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor..." ~ St. Francis

Fourth Thursday in November

Thanksgiving memories mixed with old photos both slightly faded / Nov. 1964

GivingThanks for the memories.

Plant something in your soul today

A touch of brightness in the creek-side landscape / Nov. 2011

"Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, sppontaneity, and love."

~ Thomas Merton from "New Seeds of Contemplation", 1962

hoot-da-ta-doot-hoot-hoot

Here I return the call / Ideal nesting places for owls / Park on the Rancocas Creek / Nov. 2011

Late at night I sit at my computer thinking and typing while outside an owl calls out. hoot-da-ta-doot-hoot-hoot. hoot-da-ta-doot-hoot-hoot. The sound comforts me. Some cultures believe that the owl is a harbinger of something bad happening. I prefer to think like the ancient Greeks who associated owls with wisdom. hoot-da-ta-doot-hoot-hoot. hoot-da-ta-doot-hoot-hoot. The Incas venerated the owl for its beautiful eyes. hoot-da-ta-doot-hoot-hoot. hoot-da-ta-doot-hoot-hoot. The owl is a symbol for the island of Krk in Croatia where my ancestors lived. hoot-da-ta-doot-hoot-hoot. hoot-da-ta-doot-hoot-hoot. Some say if you hear the cry of the owl that you must return the call. hoot-da-ta-doot-hoot-hoot. hoot-da-ta-doot-hoot-hoot. Some say owls are old people and should be respected. hoot-da-ta-doot-hoot-hoot. hoot-da-ta-doot-hoot-hoot.

A powerful and diverse civic movement for social justice

From the front lines: thanks to our reader "T" for participating and documenting this Day of Action march on the Howard St. bridge in Baltimore / Nov. 17, 2011

You cannot evict an idea whose time has come.

The people are on fire

The other 99% Protestors in Zuccotti Park after marching on Wall St. / I'm marching virtually with 27,527 other viewers around the world / Nov. 17, 2011 (thanks T -- occupy the bridge!)

collusion between
wall street and those elected
to serve their people

the brilliant fall leaves
a visual portrait of our
anger and actions

The poetry of hands, 45

"There exists in the world a single path along which no one can go except you: whither does it lead? Do not ask, go along it" (Nietzsche) / Oct. 2011

“...everything bears witness to what we are, our friendships and enmities, our glance and clasp of our hand, our memory and that which we do not remember, our books and our handwriting.”

~ an excerpt from Friedrich Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations

The tune in my head

Sketching while they played Angeline and I can't get the tune out of my "head" ;) / Oct. 2011

...the way I always loved her beats all you've ever seen...

~ lyrics from a version of Angelina Baker

Invisible geography

Traveling in the mind / New Jersey 2011

may my mind come alive today
to the invisible geography
that invites me to new frontiers
to break the dead shell of yesterdays
to risk being disturbed and changed

may I have the courage today
to live the life that I would love
to postpone my dream no longer
but do at last what I came here for
and waste my heart on fear no more.

~ an excerpt from John O'Donohue's "A Morning Offering"

Came the sun

Bright / Nov. 2010

. . . when in doubt, err on the side of love . . .

The poetry of hands, 44

The computer the size of a palm responds to the touch or swipe of a finger

Today is the day of the man who went through life with an exclamation point leaping from his head, but from his view it looked like this: i

~ wiremesa 

To err is to wander

Setting sun over the Jersey landscape / June 2011

"To err is to wander, and wandering is the way we discover the world; and, lost in thought, it is also the way we discover ourselves. Being right might be gratifying, but in the end it is static, a mere statement. Being wrong is hard and humbling, and sometimes even dangerous, but in the end it is a journey, and a story."

"Of all the things we are wrong about, this idea of error might well top the list. It is our meta-mistake: we are wrong about what it means to be wrong. Far from being a sign of intellectual inferiority, the capacity to err is crucial to human cognition. Far from being a moral flaw, it is inextricable from some of our most humane and honorable qualities: empathy, optimism, imagination, conviction, and courage. And far from being a mark of indifference or intolerance, wrongness is a vital part of how we learn and change. Thanks to error, we can revise our understanding of ourselves and amend our ideas about the world."

~ from Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Shulz

And the meat picked out

Picking crabs / my Aunt Joanne had a wonderful, infectious laugh that I will miss / Balto., MD circa 1970s

"Crisfield, in the ... summer is the largest crab shipping point in the world. ... The soft crab business, which has been so largely developed in recent years, has been better this year than ever and a conservative estimate places the quantity shipped at 1,500,000 dozen, worth at least $400,000. During the past two years the shipping of crab meat has been added to that of shipping soft crabs and oysters. Hard crabs are cooked in large steam vats and the meat picked out by women. The meat is then placed in gallon cans and shipped all over the country. About 50,000 gallons were shipped from Crisfield this year and sold for between $40,000 and $50,000."

~ Annual report of the Bureau of Statistics and Information of Maryland published by the Maryland Bureau of Statistics and Information, 1904

 

The poetry of hands, 43

Old and new: the younger hand-sewing and the older e-mailing / August 2011

"My father’s in my fingers, but my mother’s in my palms.
I lift them up and look at them with pleasure –
I know my parents made me by my hands."

~ an excerpt from the poem Genetics by Sinéad Morrissey

Of venus and mother nature

Rendering of the Capitoline Venus (hope that she wasn't damaged in the earthquake)/ August 2011

This was the lovely summer afternoon coming on the heels of a summer with stretches of intense heat and then intense rain when suddenly mother nature shifted and stretched and the chair beneath me rocked and the walls swayed and moaned and I finally got my wits about me and realized that it wasn't the usual tremors caused by the passing train and ran down the stairs and out the front door into the bright sunlight.

Freixenet

This is your mood on champagne / August 2011

This was the evening of the day of planning and driving and getting lost and driving some more and running to get there before the close and walking in the hot late afternoon sun and being generally worn out when two sips of the bubbly Spanish sparkling wine totally changed your outlook and gave new meaning to the word "spirits".

All the doings they did

On the steps at Nelson's place (where the stories of the "doings" that went on there are still told) in Ocean City, NJ showing off old-time bathing costumes (from the bottom: Grandma, cousin Charlie, Pap)

"It would be hard to tell all the doings they did. And fun lasted them a long time, for after it had happened they’d be years telling each other about it, and the more they told about it the funnier it got."

~ an excerpt from the story "Sold" by Wendell Berry

Of the people

A drink and a shot of Elvis might help / August 2000

This was the morning of waking in a stupor, depressed by the stupidity and pettyness of one's government that was in no way working by the people or for the people and searching for a little relief and hope in a beat and a little movement of the feet...

 

 

And where do you store your wooden spoons?

Freezer / July 2011

This is where an engineer stores his wooden spoon. Where it can keep pressure on the refrigerator fan so the poorly-constructed fan won't whine and scream.

The remarkable wind effect

Setting sun over beach art during a heat wave / Wildwood, NJ

This was the evening (when the thermometer read 74 degrees and a cool breeze whipped around the exposed beach) before the afternoon when the temperature hit 104 degrees, which can feel remarkably refereshing when a breeze comes off the ocean's cool water: nature's version of air conditioning.