Anyone else feeling the crunch? Clients rushing to spend their 2016 budgets, presents to wrap, January 20th creeping closer every day… no wonder I just want to knit.
quotes
Wednesday Words
Friday Links
Today’s Quote
“It’s a constant, continuous, spectacular world we live in, and every day you see things that just knock you out, if you pay attention.”
Robert Irwin
Friday Links
1. I found a shirt that is even more geeky and niche than my “Holden Caulfield Is A Phony” shirt and it is this:
Take my money, literary t-shirt!
2. Here is a quote from astronomer Annie Jump Cannon, which is as applicable now as it was at the turn of the last century:
“In these days of great trouble and unrest, it is good to have something outside our own planet, something fine and distant and comforting to troubled minds. Let people look to the stars for comfort.”
The Light Of Compassion
Something profound I saw on the even*cleveland blog a while back:
…the fact that we can never know light itself is helpful in appreciating the working of boundless compassion. When the light of compassion illuminates our existence, it reveals our self-delusions. Hiroyuki Itsuki … describes this as follows:
We cannot know that we are illuminated by a great light simply by looking up into the sky. But if we lower our heads and look down at our feet we can clearly see the long, dark shadow that stretches out from us. We know that the darker and blacker that shadow is, the brighter the light that shines upon us.
– Taitetsu Unno, Shin Buddhism: Bits of Rubble Turn into Gold.
(Let it shine.)
Making Things
A friend recommended Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear to me. I didn’t think it was giving me too many “aha!” moments like she promised–until I realized I was just taking pictures of pages because it took too long to write down quotes.
Here’s one that really got me thinking:
Be Brave
“You can see this intention to go toward the right wing in politics that’s taking place. But it will only bring us to a darker place, and a rainier season. Whenever humans lose their courage, it’s always followed by all kinds of tragedies.”
Ai Weiwei, artist, as told to the New York Times
Public Service Announcement
Trader Joes has bunches of ten daffodils for $1.49 right now. That means you can get this for THREE DOLLARS:
And if you’re standing in Trader Joe’s considering whether two bunches (for THREE DOLLARS) is excessive and whether you should just buy one and save a little, remember this quote by Whittier:
“If thou of fortune be bereft,
and in thy store there be but left
two loaves, sell one, and with the
dole, buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.”
Whittier knew how to love a spring bulb.
Who Else Has Spring Fever?
The warm weather in Southern Utah got me all riled up and now I just want it to be warm enough to sit on the deck after dinner and have long brunches outside and wear shoes that don’t have to keep your feet dry.
While we’re at it, I also want to be tan, and not have wrinkles, and get new carpeting and a new bed and new sheets and new pillows, and maybe get a dog, and definitely get some new clothes.
In other words, I’m feeling this Hemingway today:
“I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back that I can feel. . . . And I want to eat at a table with my own silver and I want candles. And I want it to be spring and I want to brush my hair out in front of a mirror and I want a kitty and I want some new clothes.”
– from “Cat In The Rain”