Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. ~ Max Ehrmann (Desiderata)
One of my dad’s earliest and very special memories was of sitting on his father’s shoulders, watching a New York City ticker tape parade in honor of Charles Lindbergh, who had returned from his historic solo transatlantic flight. Dad was five years old that day, June 13, 1927, and he and his father were among the estimated 3 to 4 million people lined up along Fifth Avenue from Battery Park to Central Park. The New York Times wrote “Never was America prouder of a son.” What a thrill it was for a little fellow to catch a glimpse of his hero!
Today Dad turns 90 and I thought I could honor this milestone with some words from the autobiography written by his childhood hero. I gave Dad a copy of The Spirit of St. Louis a few years ago, and I know he read some of it, even while protesting that he disliked reading. He was never much of a reader – he said all the reading he had to do in college turned him off to it. But he loved to discuss the meanings of words and we both enjoyed looking things up in the dictionary and encyclopedia. Now that he is confined to a wheelchair we do find him reading the books we offer to him from time to time.
Charles A. Lindbergh
For unmeasurable periods, I seem divorced from my body, as though I were an awareness spreading out through space, over the earth and into the heavens, unhampered by time or substance, free from the gravitation that binds to heavy human problems of the world. My body requires no attention. It’s not hungry. It’s neither warm or cold. It’s resigned to being left undisturbed. Why have I troubled to bring it here? I might better have left it back at Long Island or St. Louis, while the weightless element that has lived within it flashes through the skies and views the planet. This essential consciousness needs no body for its travels. It needs no plane, no engine, no instruments, only the release from flesh which circumstances I’ve gone through make possible.
Then what am I – the body substance which I can see with my eyes and feel with my hands? Or am I this realization, this greater understanding which dwells within it, yet expands through the universe outside; a part of all existence, powerless but without need for power; immersed in solitude, yet in contact with all creation? There are moments when the two appear inseparable, and others when they could be cut apart by the merest flash of light.
While my hand is on the stick, my feet on the rudder, and my eyes on the compass, this consciousness, like a winged messenger, goes out to visit the waves below, testing the warmth of water, the speed of wind, the thickness of intervening clouds. It goes north to the glacial coasts of Greenland, over the horizon to the edge of dawn, ahead to Ireland, England, and the continent of Europe, away through space to the moon and stars, always returning, unwillingly, to the mortal duty of seeing that the limbs and muscles have attended their routine while it was gone.
“Enclosed Field with Rising Sun” by Vincent van Gogh
Over lowland, over snow and tundra span arches, raised by the rising sun. See: the light is winning! And the stream is streaming towards open minds and towards seeds dreaming of growth. ~ Einar Skjæraasen (The Nordic Light)
Yesterday we had lunch again at my new favorite restaurant, Mangetout, pictured above. I had Potato, White Bean & Swiss Chard Soup (yummy!) and Tim was pleased with his Tempeh Reuben Wrap.
Two years ago today I started writing this blog. To mark the occasion I’ve adopted still another new theme, Twenty Eleven, and installed a new and improved email subscription widget, in case any readers are still not receiving notifications. Keeping my fingers crossed! I’ve been self-hosting since September with lots of assistance from my computer wizard son, Nate, even though he moved a thousand miles away from me in November.
This winter has been a no-show. After last winter’s record snowfalls I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed…
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Make your own Bible. Select and Collect all those words and sentences that in all your reading have been to you like the blast of trumpet… ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (Journal, July 1836)
The past year I’ve been concentrating more on ‘making my own bible’ here. I love posting words that have been ‘like the blast of a trumpet’ to me, and then reading all the delightful comments my friends leave about how they were inspired by or disagreed with the sentences I’ve chosen on any given day.
But I’m itching to get out on more nature walks soon, to see what I can do with our new camera!
I finally got all of the data transferred from my old family history site to Rodgers Family History – that was a big project. The site is now buzzing with activity and distant cousins as far away as Australia have found us and connected with us. It’s wonderful!
6.24.06 ~ Bristow, Virginia (Jeff Child/Rudy Arias)
Another big change this past year has been our becoming a vegan household and me finally learning to enjoy cooking.
Didn’t see that one coming!
She runs up into the light surprised Her arms are opened Her mind’s eye is Seeing things from a better side than most can dream ~ Dave Matthews ♫ (Best of What’s Around) ♫
This picture of Dave Matthews was taken at a concert I went to with Fran in Virginia in 2006. Thankfully we were under the pavilion roof – there was a tremendous thunderstorm and the driven rain reached us 35 seats in from the edge! The folks on the lawn were soaked to the skin.
I cannot believe that was almost six years ago! Before all the heart attacks, falls, broken hips, femurs and ribs, diabetes, biopsies, dementia, diverticulitis, hypertension, osteomalacia and outrageously expensive prescriptions… Phew! Let’s hope the new diet, walking, and careful sunbathing brings an end to most, if not all, of these problems.
Haven’t been to Dave Matthews Band concerts recently and am missing the spiritual high. But I’ve seen a couple shows streaming online and one once in a movie theater – much more comfortable than fighting the rowdy crowds and jammed parking lots. Still, while the music is playing live under the stars and the words are floating through my very being… there’s nothing quite like being there.
Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. ~ William James (The Varieties of Religious Experience)
In studying the history of the human mind one is impressed again and again by the fact that the growth of the mind is the widening of the range of consciousness, and that each step forward has been a most painful and laborious achievement. ~ Carl Jung (Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing)
Consciousness is the basis of all life and the field of all possibilities. Its nature is to expand and unfold its full potential. The impulse to evolve is thus inherent in the very nature of life. ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (The Little Book of Becoming)
O star of wonder, star of night Star with royal beauty bright Westward leading, still proceeding Guide us to thy perfect light ♫ (We Three Kings of Orient Are) ♫
Are you looking for answers, to questions under the stars? If along the way you are growing weary, You can rest with me until a brighter day It’s okay ~ Dave Matthews ♫ (Where Are You Going) ♫
There’s the wind And the rain And the mercy of the fallen Who say, “Hey, it’s not my place To know what’s right” There’s the weak And the strong And the many stars that guide us We have some of them inside us ~ Dar Williams ♫ (Mercy of the Fallen) ♫
One must say Yes to life, and embrace it wherever it is found – and it is found in terrible places… For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out. ~ James Baldwin (Fumbling Toward Divinity: The Adoption Scriptures)
