“In our finest hours…the soul of the country manifests itself in an inclination to open our arms rather than to clench our fists; to look out rather than to turn inward; to accept rather than to reject. In so doing, America has grown ever stronger, confident that the choice of light over dark is the means by which we pursue progress.”
― Jon Meacham, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.”
“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity… and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”
Mt. Lemmon, San Pedro Valley Vista Before the Big Horn Fire — Image by kenne
“You can’t divide the country up into sections and have one rule for one section and one rule for another, and you can’t encourage people’s prejudices. You have to appeal to people’s best instincts, not their worst ones. You may win an election or so by doing the other, but it does a lot of harm to the country.”
— Jon Meacham, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels
Truth never dies. The ages come and go. The mountains wear away, the stars retire. Destruction lays earth’s mighty cities low; And empires, states and dynasties expire; But caught and handed onward by the wise, Truth never dies.
Though unreceived and scoffed at through the years, Though made the butt of ridicule and jest, Though held aloft for mockery and jeers, Denied by those of transient power possessed, Insulted by the insolence of lies, Truth never dies.
It answers not. It does not take offense, But with a mighty silence bides its time. As some great cliff that braves the elements And lifts through all the storms its head sublime, It ever stands, uplifted by the wise, And never dies.
As rests the Sphinx amid Egyptian sands; As looms on high the snowy peak and crest; As firm and patient as Gibraltar stands, So truth, unwearied, waits the era blest When men shall turn to it with great surprise. Truth never dies.
My good friend Tom Marley recently introduced me to Cavafy’s poetry.
“The poet makes a personal yet universal confession about the walls that bring suffocation to his life.
These walls are related to the social structure, the economy, religion, and much more.
The worst thing is not the existence of these walls, of these limitations of the free development
but the fact that the walls were created before us, so we cannot even notice
their existence and fight against them.”
Walls
With no consideration, no pity, no shame,
they have built walls around me, thick and high.
And now I sit here feeling hopeless.
I can’t think of anything else: this fate gnaws my mind –
because I had so much to do outside.
When they were building the walls, how could I not have noticed!
But I never heard the builders, not a sound.
Imperceptibly they have closed me off from the outside world.
Suffering occurs when we want other people to love us in the way that we imagine we want to be loved, and not in the way that love should manifest itself — free and untrammeled, guiding us with its force and driving us on.
I went to the [desert] because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
“I feel that a real living form is the natural result
of the individual’s effort to create the living thing
out of the adventure of his spirit into the unknown —
it has where experienced something — felt something —
it has not understood — and from that experience
comes the desire to make the unknown — known —
Making the unknown — known — in terms of one’s medium
is all-absorbing — if you stop to think of the form — as form
you are lost — The artist’s form must be inevitable —
You mustn’t think you won’t succeed –“
— Georgia O’Keeffe in a letter to Sherwood Anderson, 1923
I’m now in my 16th year of retirement. Still, like a lot of retired people, I stay very busy, working as a volunteer naturalist in Sabino Canyon, where we teach children about nature, leading nature walks and hikes on the many trails in Sabino Canyon. When I’m not volunteering, I spend my time doing creative things, usually after morning conditioning activities.
Over the years, I have created an extensive iTunes library of music and recorded poetry and psychology. This morning while walking in the neighborhood, I had my iTunes library on shuffle, and two of my non-music recordings of authors came on; Charles Bukowski, “Something for the Touts, the Nuns, the Grocery Clerks and You” and Alan Watts lecture titled “Insides and Outsides.” It was spiritual.
Alan Watts — Insides and Outsides (audio)
Charles Bukowski Video
We have everything, and we have nothing Some do it well enough for a while and then give way Fame gets them or disgust or age or lack of proper diet or ink across the eyes or children in college Or new cars or broken backs while skiing in Switzerland Or new politics or new wives Or just natural change and decay — The man you knew yesterday hooking for ten rounds or drinking for three days and three nights by the Sawtooth mountains now just something under a sheet or a cross, or a stone, or under an easy delusion Or packing a bible or a golf bag or a briefcase How they go, how they go! All the ones you thought would never go Days like this, like your day today Maybe the rain on the window trying to get through to you What do you see today? What is it? Where are you? The best days are sometimes the first, sometimes the middle, and even sometimes the last. The vacant lots are not bad Churches in Europe on postcards are not bad? People in wax museums frozen into their best sterility are not bad? Horrible, but not bad? The cannons, think of the cannon And toast for breakfast and coffee hot enough to know your tongue is still there Three geraniums outside a window, trying to be red and trying to be pink and trying to be geraniums No wonder sometimes the women cry No wonder the mules don’t wanna go up the hill. One more good day, a little bit of it
Enough and not enough Arcs and pilgrims, oranges, gutters, ferns, antibodies, boxes of tissue paper In the most decent sometimes sun There is the softsmoke feeling from urns And the canned sound of old battleplanes And if you go inside and run your finger along the window ledge, you’ll find dirt, maybe even earth And if you look out the window, there will be the day And as you get older you’ll keep looking, keep looking Sucking your tongue in a little Ah, ah, no, no, maybe
I love this poem. Like any poem that resonates, it does so in one’s own heart, head, and hands
connecting us to the world around us, for good or bad.
Machines are an extension of who we are. When produced by the right values,
the result will be the right thoughts. “Right thoughts produce right actions and
right actions produce work, which will be a material reflection for others
to see of the serenity at the center of it all,” understanding that we’re connected with everything.
All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace
I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
Snow At Windy Point Vista, Tucson, Arizona — Photo-Artistry by kenne
When I think of the historical Christ, I think of courage:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Cathedral Rock Panorama by kenne
Catalina Foothills Sunset — Image by kenne
“Global Warming” — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Tucson Door Window — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Cactus Flower — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Self-portrait (Photo-Artistry)
Sabino Canyon — Panorama by kenne
Snow At Windy Point Vista, Tucson, Arizona — Photo-Artistry by kenne
