I don't need no one to tell me about heaven I look at my daughter, and I believe. I don't need no proof when it comes to God and truth I can see the sunset and I perceive
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For Anna:
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(My intentions have all fallen to the floor...but...I can feel the forces pulling from the center of the earth again)
Behold the Box Jellyfish drifting in a coral sea...a fearsome phantasm, a most incongruous improbability. She is beyond comprehension...a cloud of dream and death.
Her nickname is the “Sea Wasp” (although wasps, I’m sure, sullenly pout in envy of her talents). She’s considered the most venomous of sea creatures for, should she embrace you with her 60-some tentacles, you will surely die. Step aside, Medusa! This translucent-blue siren can render a seafaring stranger to dust, not simply stone.
But it’s her eyes that mesmerize. It’s always about the eyes, no? This creature of fluid and tentacles and venom, this diaphanous dream, has twenty-four.
She circles the square with eyes on four sides. Eight are mere slits, eight are pitted mysteries. Eight more are sophisticated wonders: orbs with lens, retina, iris and cornea, expressed in miniaturized perfection...except...except...she's woefully near-sighted!
And even more confounding...this beauty has no brain. Where do her perceptions go? Where are her memories? Her visions? Her dreams?
As you can see, I’m still in “not understanding” mode. But I know this:
She sees more than I can ever see. She knows more of life and death, of sunlight and sea, than I can ever know.
One might think that my relative silence, bloggishly-speaking, is an indication of a certain peace of mind. It isn’t. My brain is as feverish as ever...perhaps more so. There are times when my mind swirls around a feeling, a “topic” or a question. Those are the learning times, for me. Most days, though, all is cluttered jumble.
On days such as these, my mind covers terrain like this:
Brilliant Whimsy
I simply do not tire of this fanciful bit of imagery. I smile each time I view it. I think it’s because my world is peopled by flying penguins...
Reader Abuse
I’ll confess I’m a solipsist. I am. I’ve noticed that I’ve been using this blog as a repository for songs I revisit often. Given that all of my music is packed in boxes scattered far and wide, I’ve resorted to pasting music clips so they’d tingle at my fingertips. Then again, the songs I paste mean a great deal to me, each for its own unique reasons. Here’s one those (the video’s a bit lame...):
My Inner Woman
I’ve long been aware that a great many (most) of the songs that touch me the deepest are songs written and sung by women...from a woman’s point of view. It doesn’t seem to matter. So often, these songs mirror my own emotions.
By the way, I think I look stunning in heels...
I Don’t Understand...
much of anything. It’s not that I’m a dolt (although several valid arguments support that determination), I “understand” a great many things from an intellectual, rational and educated perspective. It is useful to possess a rational “understanding” of the world.
But I understand so little. My greatest truths, barely a handful, resonate within me intellectually, emotionally and physically. To truly understand something...anything...it must be experienced. Without direct experience, all we have is empathy...without empathy all we have is blind ignorance.
Yep. I’m gonna do it again...post a song for my own enjoyment...and reflection.
Believe it or not, I've not seen even one airing of American Idol. Not one. Neither have I ever watched the original British version, The X Factor. I'm a Philistine, I guess.
OK, now that we've established I'm not quite current with the times (is there any surprise?), I'll confess I heard this woman sing, for the very first time, today. The chanteuse is Leona Lewis, and she has quite a voice. She was an X Factor winner and debuted to resounding acclaim in her home country. One of her hits is this song:
This song gets to me on every level that counts (to me, anyway). I keep listening to it, over and over, again.
What I don't understand is why I begin to cry each time...
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If you'd like to view the official video of this song, you can find it here (embedding is disabled).
* * * As I sit and ponder my ignorance...as I wonder about animal souls (and my very own)...the Arctic ice is melting, disappearing...and these magnificent creatures are starving, drowning, disappearing, too...
Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars... Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'
Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
That old law about 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.
The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.
The time is always right to do what is right.
Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.
We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
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Forty years ago, today...he was gunned down...for his words...
