“The finest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.” – Albert Einstein
Posted by Old Moss Woman’s Secret Garden
Full Snow Moon ocurres today, February 9. And it was Kate, The Golden One, who died in my arms on Sunday night, just like this, those many years ago. That was when we lived in Shaker Heights. It strikes me that I am still a “we,” met with another large dog, this time black, and another small cat, this time gray and black. They are not the same, we are not the same, and still we are. This is not to be understood, cannot be understood. And it is.
Working-Class History· 3 February · On this day, 3 February 2006, Al Lewis, lifelong socialist and actor who portrayed Grandpa Munster in the popular TV show The Munsters died in New York aged 82. Radicalized by his immigrant garment worker mother at a young age, he became a committed socialist by the time of the great depression. When landlords evicted people, Lewis and his colleagues would break back into the properties and move the tenants’ furniture back in. And if unemployed workers were denied relief, Lewis would join others in storming relief centers and fight the police. Despite living through the Reagan years of reaction, he kept his principles and remained realistic: “I’ve been in the struggle over 70 years. It doesn’t bother me I may not win. After doing X amount of time or years, don’t throw your hands up in the air because, you see, everybody wants ‘the win’. They want it today. It doesn’t happen. The struggle goes on. The victory is in the struggle, for me. And I accepted that a long time ago.”
Posted by Working Class History
It’s not easy to remain steadfast and calm, fluid and focused on your hopes for a society when those others, those of the elite and oligarchy receive applause and support. When the oppressed enable their oppressors. When the words that tumble so easily from a leader’s mouth have to be checked for truth. For reality.
When I was growing up I never thought the number of school children shot and killed, injured, maimed, would be a statistic in the United States. I never thought that children would be afraid to go to school in this country. It used to be only with people of color or the poorest of the poor where the struggle lived. Funny how equality is earned.
But then, I never thought I’d see our planet burning. Or our animals destroyed. I never thought that concentration camps would return, that women would still have to fight for equality.
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.
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.
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?
Writers Ink—Writing and Stuff 