cultivating my sense of wonder

Roger Ebert

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 19:11:11 -0400

“Kindness covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”

cats!

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:07:07 -0400

cats!

‎”The trigger I’d pulled in stepping into the snow made me more alive to my senses than...

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 21:42:17 -0400

‎”The trigger I’d pulled in stepping into the snow made me more alive to my senses than ever. Uncertain as I was as I pushed forward, I felt right in my pushing, as if the effort itself meant something. That perhaps being amidst the undesecrated beauty of the wilderness meant I too could be undesecrated, regardless of what I’d lost or what had been taken from me, regardless of the regrettable things I’d done to others or myself or the regrettable things that had been done to me. Of all the things I’d been skeptical about, I didn’t feel skeptical about this: the wilderness had a clarity that included me.”

Cheryl Strayed, Wild

Spent a long time on the IHM database at the National Library of...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:26:00 -0500

Spent a long time on the IHM database at the National Library of Medicine last night. Some compellingly beautiful things to see there.

Does happiness strain credibility? Is there something in the human spirit that distrusts its own...

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:48:00 -0500

Does happiness strain credibility? Is there something in the human spirit that distrusts its own appetites, its own yearning for healing and contentment? Can we not believe two adults, in love, might resolve to make their own miracle?

Tim O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods

you’ve got to push all the doubt to the side of your...

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 23:08:29 -0500

you’ve got to push all the doubt to the side of your mouth

Probably way late to the bus (bandwagon, whatever) on this one, but what I lack in timeliness I make up for in enthusiasm.

A beautiful thing that a friend of mine helped to make.

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:16:11 -0500

A beautiful thing that a friend of mine helped to make.

sick days

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 20:36:00 -0500

I’ve been listening to the snow melt all afternoon

Remembering, Rainer Maria Rilke

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 11:38:56 -0500

And you wait. You wait for the one thing
that will change your life,
make it more than it is—
something wonderful, exceptional,
stones awakening, depths opening to you.

In the dusky bookstalls
old books glimmer gold and brown.
You think of lands you journeyed through,
of paintings and a dress once worn
by a woman you never found again.

And suddenly you know: that was enough.
You rise and there appears before you
in all its longings and hesitations
the shape of what you lived.

Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

Olives, Bread, Honey, and Salt The lanes are littered with the bodies of bees.A torrent took them,...

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 22:31:18 -0500

Olives, Bread, Honey, and Salt

The lanes are littered with the bodies of bees.
A torrent took them, swarming in branches
just as the white buds loosened their hearts
of pale yellow powder. Each body is a lover:
the one with skin blank as pages; the one
so moved by the pulse ticking in your throat;
the one who took your lips in his teeth
and wouldn’t let go; the one who turned
from you and lay there like a carcass. If we were
made to be whole, we wouldn’t be so lost
to each offering of tenderness and a story.
Therefore our greatest longing is our home.
There is always the one bee that circles and circles,
twitching its sodden wings.

Melissa Stein

via

Understanding the nature of things generates deep wonder. The realization that the universe consists...

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 20:52:00 -0500

Understanding the nature of things generates deep wonder. The realization that the universe consists of atoms and void and nothing else, that the world was not made for us by a providential creator, that we are not the center of the universe, that our emotional lives are no more distinct than our physical lives from those of all other creatures, that our souls are as material and as mortal as our bodies—these things are not the cause for despair. On the contrary, grasping the way things really are is the crucial step toward the possibility of happiness. Human insignificance—the fact that it is not all about us and our fate—is, Lucretius insisted, the good news.

Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve

“Men suffer the worst evils for the sake of the most alien desires” wrote...

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:15:00 -0500

“Men suffer the worst evils for the sake of the most alien desires” wrote [Epicurus’s] disciple Philodemus, in one of the books found in the library at Herculaneum, and “they neglect the most necessary appetites as if they were the most alien to nature.” What are these necessary appetites that lead to pleasure? It is impossible to live pleasurably, Philodemus continued, “without living prudently and honorably and justly, and also without living courageously and temperately and magnanimously, and without making friends, and without being philanthropic.”

Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve

“It’s not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life which ultimately nourish...

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 19:14:10 -0500

“It’s not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life which ultimately nourish our souls. It’s the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear the truth, that the bedrock of our very being is good stuff.”

Mister Rogers kind of breaks my heart.

Sometimes in the woods near the farm in Percussina he lay on the leaf-soft ground and listened to...

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:15:54 -0400

Sometimes in the woods near the farm in Percussina he lay on the leaf-soft ground and listened to the two-tone song of the birds, high low high, high low high low, high low high low high. Sometimes by a woodland stream he watched the water rush over the pebbled bed, its tiny modulations of bound and flow. A woman’s body was like that. If you watched carefully enough you could see how it moved to the rhythm of the world, the deep rhythm, the music below the music, the truth below the truth. He believed in this hidden truth the way other men believed in God or Love, believed that truth was in fact always hidden, that the apparent, the overt, was invariably a kind of lie. Because he was a man fond of precision he wanted to capture the hidden truth precisely, to see it clearly and set it down, the truth beyond ideas of right and wrong, ideas of good and evil, ideas of ugliness and beauty, all of which were aspects of the surface deceptions of the world, having little to do with how things really worked, disconnected from the whatness, the secret codes, the hidden forms, the mystery.

Salman Rushdie, The Enchantress of Florence

A couple of times in the past week I have walked to the tops of mountains. It is a funny thing. I...

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 10:12:51 -0400

A couple of times in the past week I have walked to the tops of mountains. It is a funny thing. I start at the bottom. I put one foot in front of the other. And eventually I am sitting down, eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, feeling the wind blow against my face, looking out at a big ol’ lake.

Lock 12, Holtwood, PA

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 10:29:42 -0400

Lock 12, Holtwood, PA

my favorite place in Pennsylvania

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 10:49:35 -0400

my favorite place in Pennsylvania

“When citizens are challenged by their own understanding of order and governance, when they...

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 21:25:01 -0400

“When citizens are challenged by their own understanding of order and governance, when they ask difficult questions about what their lives and destinies mean, when they require trust and solace, and when we have no forum at hand to debate essential issues, I think it becomes even clearer that the tasks of a culture’s institutions are to assist in the management of human questions, to create fair and trusted forums for self-exploration and self-presentation, and to help conduct the conversations essential to civic enrichment.”

David Carr, A Place not a Place

M.C. Escher, Plane Filling II.

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 21:18:52 -0400

M.C. Escher, Plane Filling II.

"The following day, I attended a workshop about preventing gender violence, facilitated by Katz...."

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 09:47:42 -0400

“

The following day, I attended a workshop about preventing gender violence, facilitated by Katz. There, he posed a question to all of the men in the room: “Men, what things do you do to protect yourself from being raped or sexually assaulted?”

Not one man, including myself, could quickly answer the question. Finally, one man raised his hand and said, “Nothing.” Then Katz asked the women, “What things do you do to protect yourself from being raped or sexually assaulted?” Nearly all of the women in the room raised their hand. One by one, each woman testified:

“I don’t make eye contact with men when I walk down the street,” said one.
“I don’t put my drink down at parties,” said another.
“I use the buddy system when I go to parties.”
“I cross the street when I see a group of guys walking in my direction.”
“I use my keys as a potential weapon.”

The women went on for several minutes, until their side of the blackboard was completely filled with responses. The men’s side of the blackboard was blank. I was stunned. I had never heard a group of women say these things before. I thought about all of the women in my life — including my mother, sister and girlfriend — and realized that I had a lot to learn about gender.

”

- Why I Am A Male Feminist (via newwavefeminism) (via bon-bon)