Author: L.E. Hansen

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A New Month

February is when the Great Blue Herons return to Ohio to begin a new season of nesting. This photo was captured a couple of years ago at the Bath Road Heronry in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Rob Blair posted: Looking forward to the beginning of another great season to experience and photograph them again!

  • Rob Blair—Great Blue Heron

The word February comes from the Roman festival of purification called Februa, during which people were ritually washed. The god was named after the festival, not the other way around which was the most usual process of naming. Nonetheless, we Anglos found a way to connect to the Romans, and to the gods.

The native American Indians, the Sioux, called this moon period (month) The Moon of the Long Haired Pony. What a wonderful way to connect to nature, to the earth. It’s also not a bad thought to call it the month of the Return of the Great Blue Heron.

Blue Heron Moon. I like it.

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Happy Birthday

Thanks again to our pal Donna May for posting a birthday note. Donna says that Robbie Burns was born on this day in 1759.

I’m always surprised by the people who know this singular quote from Robbie Burns. Some might even know the origin, which is the poem “To a Louse,” written by an anonymous narrator who is sitting behind a fancied swell in a church pew. What does not surprise me is that those who know the quote consider that it is meant for someone else.

We are the one in the church pew viewing the lovely yet pompous woman kneeling in a false prayer in front of us. We see the louse crawling up her shoulder. We rarely turn to see ourselves, as the poem says, as others see us.

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Thursday Thoughts

  • The problem with living in the now and with releasing the past (meditation, blank state and all that) is being a Reader. Reader, Writer, either—both. There it is in front of you, those dates, those times, those revolutions, those disappointments. Those misunderstandings. Those uglinesses and judgments (of self). And of course those flights when living inches off the ground, and equally the longing for them.
  • To say nothing of seeing again the raising of the flag of protest and reaching for the wine bottle. Or vodka when all of it is considered.
  • We found that if you don’t kneel to sacred cows you’ll be wiped out by them. We also found out the joke’s on us. That is, when it ends and you look around and no one’s there. There’s no one left standing as everyone grew up at the same time as they got older and then they became middle America.
  • Terrible is an adjective that has become so limited by its use in the negative when it should not be so. Think of a terrible love, think of a belief of terrible strength. Think Terrible Glory! No, it should not be limited to the anthem of negativity. The same with awful—as in an Awful Beauty.
  • The saddest thing about growing up is losing the dragons and angels and goldfish and secondary teeth without pay.
  • Certain expressions are so lovely that it’s a pleasure to work them in. To put a fine point on it we could say somethings are worth repeating even though we could become a walking cliche of ourselves in the process.
  • I personally wish people would stop saying they will give me a free gift for something. Number one and most egregious, that’s redundant. A gift is free by its very nature. Number two, we all know (or should) that it’s not free. The price is built into the cost of the item.
  • Those giants of passion, of terrible knowledge or ability, so caught in the web of their visions, never stop. Never quit. Never say “my work is over.” Einstein was working out an equation on his deathbed, and so died. Schiele was making a drawing of his wife Edith Schiele on the day she died, October 28, 1918. He passed away three days later.

  • Edith Schiele
    Posted by Modern Art Twentieth Century

But isn’t it also glorious that there are those whose work is finished when it is finished? That there are those whose work in factories builds our cars, as well the butchers who carve our meat, the drivers who bring the buses through our streets—all of value. All of need. All of it to be mastered and answered the same: to what purpose am I?

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Just For Today

Psyche’s Call with Donna May: “The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.” ~Joseph Campbell

And the biggest problem, is it not, is knowing which path to take? To understand that sometimes the direction of the path, the adventure, has to be created by ourselves. Waiting for the magic billboard in the sky is a sad mistake that too many of us make. The months, the weeks, the years go by and standing at the side of the road takes its toll. Sometimes the teacher does not arrive. Sometimes the teacher is not recognized. Sometimes we needs must create our own path, come what may, but dig in!

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Good Night

And now, dear friends, a sweet good night, and thoughts of Rilke to hold us tight.

  • Posted by Psyche’s Call with Donna May

And once more from our dear friend, Donna May. May we all dream on with thoughts of snow and angel wings. And may we plumb the depths of our own souls, our own center which cannot hold.