September 25,  2022

Reflection

BREATHE

Sometimes I have to tell myself, "Breathe."

Now of course, if I didn't breathe, I wouldn't be writing this.

However, sometimes we are all filled up with stress, pressures, calls, things pulling at us from all angles  - and we find  ourselves needing to stop - relax - and breathe.

There's breathing and there's breathing.

There's unconscious breathing and conscious breathing.

There's shallow breathing - and deep breathing.

Breathe.

Looking back I realize my father's death is strongly attached to his breathing problems - so I suspect this will happen to me as well.  This year I came to the day I lived longer than my dad. My lungs lasted longer than his lungs lasted.

I catch myself out of breath while climbing a hill or the stairs.

I need to do more exercise.

Breathe.

Scientists want to know if there is water on other planets - because if there, that means there is oxygen, and if there is oxygen, there is the possibility of life.

Scientist worry about clean air and clean water on this planet called "earth".

I do to.

Hopefully we all do.

I know the sun is figured to last billions and billions of more burning - what about water and oxygen.

In the meanwhile, keep breathing.

 September 25, 2022

Thought for Today

WHAT  GOOD  IS  A  BOOK OF  POEMS

What good is a book of my poems if you are                  reading it while riding

in the back of a wagon that is heading toward                        the edge of a cliff?

A greater awareness is what our relationship                            is supposed to be about.

I was hoping something I might have said by now              could have made you stop, get your bearings,

and start traveling in a direction that will yield                        lots of fruit. Maybe you are? That would be nice.

Hafiz,

A Year With Hafiz, page 383

translator and adapter, Daniel Ladinsky

September  24, 2022

Reflection

THE  NON-CONSIDERED

Phones - land-lines and cell - have various trade off's

Phones: you can call from anywhere, but you can be called anytime.

Sometimes we only consider one side of a question - or answer - and give no consideration of a possible other side.

There is life - but there is also death.

Tires wear out.

Cars need to be serviced.

Words can be misunderstood, misquoted or taped or recordered.

Pray.  Really pray. Sometimes you might get an answer you didn't expect.

Knives cut meat, celery, butter - but also fingers.

Children .... They change our lives. Neighbors stop to see them in the mall - or on the street - or in church - and wonder what's going on with them - especially in their teen age years

It could rain today.

Time has its limits.

We age.

We interact with each other.

We wear out.

IQ tests tell us something.

Blood pressure monitors can tell us something.

Pills have side effects.

There is an aftermath after a storm.

Rains  nourish the earth and sometimes the leaks in our roofs.

Ice cream usually gets a delicious vote; castor oil doesn't.

Ra

 

 September 24,  2022

Thought for Today

"As soon as one is unhappy one becomes moral."

Marcel Proust, 

Remembrance of things Past, 1917-1927

 September 23, 2022

Reflection

BASIC  CONCEPTS

"There are a few basic  concepts, but think of the metaphors."

I like that saying about metaphors and have through the years.

And from time to time I like to list some of the basic concepts I have come up with so far - concepts that could use a metaphor.  Here are a few first draft concepts - hoping for a metaphor.

1) There is a world of difference between hearing about something or someone than experiencing something or someone.

2) There are two kinds of people: the givers and the takers.

3) There are two kinds of people: those who notice what's missing and those who notice what's there.

4) Everyone is a Columbus, a Madam Curie, an Einstein, an Admiral Perry, they have to discover their America - their cure - their formula or their Pole.

5) Everyone has a parable, they have to discover which one is theirs.

6) The present moment is no longer present.

7) There are different  kinds of persons: listeners and dogmaticians, those who use question marks and those who use periods.

8) We'll never understand the other person..

9) There are two kinds of persons: those who bend and break and those who bend and don't.

10) Every road leads to Calvary.

11) It's all about buying and selling.

12) There are mosquitoes and there are alligators.  Both want the same thing - but they go about it so differently.

13) Timing, timing, timing, location, location, location - you can't avoid time and place.

14) Those who don't wonder and don't ponder and don't question and never scratch their head, might as well be dead.

15) Some people are never satisfied - even when they are offered an ice cream cone - or a glass of cold water.

September 23, 2022

Thought for Today 

"Certain poets - Virgil, in particular - seem untranslatable. The baggage arrives, but not the owner who is on another flight."

Fergus Chadwick,

Acumen, May 1997

September 22. 20222

BUT  WHAT ABOUT ME?

I first heard the theme from a nun.

She busted her butt for some 30 years as a teacher - and then wondered whether anyone seemed to care - what she cared about.

I articulated to her what I was hearing - using the words of a poem: "But who knows your story?"

I might have received in the mail around that time a poem by Vicki Erikson.  It was in a publication from Princeton Theological Seminary.  The line that grabbed me was, "Who heard my tears in the driving rain?"

Her story got me thinking about a lot of people I knew  - but didn't listen to enough. I'm starting to hear a lot of people - all in their 50's - and older - voice a down deep cry: "But what about me?"

Freud used the couch to listen to people - lying down -- on the leather: "Okay, what about you?"

I remember sitting with a couple. She was doing all the talking - all the venting - all the screaming - years and years of building up screaming - and he just sat there. 

I began wondering inwardly, "But what about him?"

Did he have a whole Niagara Falls of flowing words and feelings - that I am totally unaware of- that she doesn't take the time to get on a bus or a train or a car - to visit?

Niagara Falls - that's a good analogy - because I visited it at least a dozen time.  I stood there watching the waters go over the edge. Amazing.... And the flow kept flowing - kept coming - non-stop.

I was never there in the winter.

Are the words silent, frozen, grabbing, holding onto, stuck in the rocks - in the winter?

How does one turn on the spicket - and let the cold and the hot words flow?