intimations of immortality

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Ruth Housman

Several years ago, a store opened at Harvard Square, a bookstore with a wonderful name: Words Worth. How very appropriate for the echoic ring with the poet himself, a poet who wrote with such eloquence, such elegance. It was a very clever title, and here is what I was wondering even, then. And that is, how come we can do this, so beautifully, with this amazing clay, words! Pottery and poetry are very close. Are we clay at the wheel of a Master Potter? I think about this as I pass a bicycle store on route to Russell’s Garden Place. On route 20. Shades of: 2020. It is named: Spoke’n Wheel. Think about it.

Why is it no one has asked this crucial question about the alchemy of words. Yes, perhaps the crux of the matter, within crucial itself, is the cross, and within this, the rose. I see something, a beauty of words in their very deconstructions. And I say, this story will carry us all home.

And this scares the Dickens out of us. Why? Well there is this terrible angst, this life we lead being so filled with sorrow. And what is it I am saying? Turn the world upside down and now consider something else? How it is I can joke in a talk about evolution and its meaning and say, “Guerilla” warfare, bringing an audience to laughter. How it is I can say, I have Great Expectations, this story is going to someplace that is ultimately about love. And yet, we all go to the Wall, totally on issues of free will and determinism. And yet, again, if any one of us believe there IS this Messianic story, about see change and a sea change in human consciousness that is written, we have reconsider, free will and determinism and how this dance is constructed. We just do. And going to that place is going to be one hell of a bumpy ride.  Pale horse. Pale rider.

I am saying this story is about love. I am saying this. And my words, like water, like flow, like what is current, what is also charged in current, are being so totally ignored. Invisible. As the hidden face of God. And yet so visible.

When I am in autumn, a season that brings me to hug those trees with renewed vigor, I see everywhere, that Moses story, about the burning bush. Those vivid reds, so scarlet, those oranges. And I think about Vivaldi. The Four Seasons.

Within Nature herself, sign nature of all things!

How do I love Thee, let me count the ways (Browning). Brownian Motion.

And poetry, all poetry, is the explication, of these endless metaphoric truths.

I say, it’s not over, when it’s over. I give homage to Wordsworth, Intimations of Immortality. Look around, world. Turn it upside down. It is said, the poles are shifting!

Pease porridge hot/pease porridge cold/pease porridge in the pot/nine days old/ some like it hot/some like it cold/ some like it in the pot/nine days old

I remember having to say this, when studying acting. And I say look to those nursery rhymes too, Go in and out the Windows/ As you have done Before/

and maybe, take another look! What is, behind the scenes. Behind what’s seen? What scene is this? What Act. I am losing track.

Ashes/Ashes/we all fall down

and then, with our children, we do pick ourselves up, hold hands, and circle!

Post script: Re Brownian Motion: parts of my Diary were sent and are still being sent, to the Hay Library at BROWN University, The Mel Yoken Collection of Letters.

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woodwinds

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Ruth Housman

We all have particular passions in life, and there are some things that we do not do, that leave us with regrets. Often, we don’t feel capable or we just don’t have the talent, and though practice makes perfect, not everyone is gifted in the same ways. It’s one thing to thrill to the music. It must be another world entirely, to thrill to being up there, on the stage, playing one’s heart out. Singing one’s heart out.  This is why I love The Mystic Chorale, because we can all of us join in!

To sing, is a state of mind Jackson C. Frank

The ancient Greek sculptures of people did so look like violins. They knew.

Last night I attended a beautiful benefit concert at a Cambridge Churchfor the homeless. My daughter, Lisa, and her husband Dave, of Sweet Wednesday, had written some lyrical songs that were firsts for me. The music, the violins, the guitars, the voices, of not just their group, but others, was beautiful. Patricia A. played the piano like an angel from some heavenly realm. Such a gift! It used to be, called, Divine. Then we got smarter or did we?, and called this something else. Maybe it is everything else: A theory of everything that takes all of it in. Just maybe.

There was a reunion that involved a wonderful musician and friend to all, “the Reverend Busker“, whose music was a deeply meaningful part of my recent birthday. He was reunited, recently, with sons he had not known. This is his story. One of his sons, played beautifully and sang at this concert. It was so WOW. So entirely WOW!

I feel so thankful sometimes, my heart is bursting with the song of just this. “Thank YOU, thank You!” To be here. Tears stream down your face…. If people could hear the voices within, what would we feel, about each other, about feelings themselves?

Maybe I never needed this “other story” that is coming to me, a story that is a doubling kind of thing, a story within the story. A music running contrapuntal to this melody, to all of our lives.

As it is, very few people try to understand what I am trying to say,and most totally dismiss me, even to my face,  so in a way, I am putting down on the page, my soul, and in doing this there is a kind of bleeding of hearts, because life is just so much about bleeding hearts in every way we can imagine. Would we have “soul music” without this? Would we be able to sing, The Blues? Aren’t most songs, love songs? And speaking of bleeding hearts, what about, the “son” in song itself, the word? Think about it. And, think again.

The word cutting edge itself, has a double meaning: take a scissors to it. To be in the vanguard. Take your pick. Maybe it’s both.

Are there answers to the deepest questions? Are they: Blowing in the wind? Woodwinds. A song of thrush and nightingale? Would winds? Would that it were about love. Will it!

Dear Shakespeare. A love sonnet.

Will it!  Make it, LOVE!

Please, Make it LOVE!

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Heart to Heart

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Ruth Housman

We all have intimations of something more. In fact there are many songs with this notion, buried within or explicitly stated. Life can be more than, hard. The suffering I encounter is beyond reason. It seems we are all of us here, in one way or another to experience the deepest of pain, at some time or other, either in our own lives or in the lives of others. I am haunted by much of what I have seen, continue to see, and I think we are all of us, haunted and hunted in a way, finding ourselves at times part of the pack, and then somehow being chased down. We have to stop, sooner or later, pull out of the stream, and this deeply forces many of us to observe the stream, to reach conclusions we could not reach, about the nature of all lives. Extreme. Ex stream.

Heraclitus: we never step into the same stream twice.

Maybe suffering is inevitable but we do know, there is this phoenix, this bird, that always rises out of it, and I have said, many times, this blog is for the birds. I do see, metaphorically and completely, in so many ways, that language carries the story.

For me, something happened in asking questions. I do believe that in asking questions we are often forwarded answers, but we cannot always share what we are getting. There is a kind of surrender to this and this is hard. For me, the asking of very deep, troubling questions, to that “Void” we all do seem to “Avoid“, brought me to words, to their deconstructions and constructions, and I am seeing a story deeply within them, that I say, will bring us all home.

There is this word dovetail in English, meaning pieces of carpentry that fit together perfectly. I saw the word split, a long time ago, into dove tale. Dove is our word that does associate with peace and tail, is aurally tale. For me, it’s obvious that we are ultimately moving forward in a dovetail, both together, as pieces fit together in our lives, and also together in this movement, this inchoate notion, we want peace. World peace. And yet when one looks around the world, at individual stories, there is such pain, so much that is broken, and the world itself has so much that is imponderable, in terms of acts of terror, injustice, and suffering. So how can I say this?

Auricle and Oracle are aurally synonymous. Do people really listen to each other? Do they really hear? Or are we all filtering. Are all of us, filter feeders? Change your filters. Open up and out. There is more to heaven and earth, Horatio… (Shakespeare)

I think what’s happening now in Egypt, has to be a harbinger of what is more, something to come. Israel is the size of a postage stamp. The conflicts among peoples who are actually one, in terms of Biblical history, are ongoing and circular. How will this part of the world change? Will it? It does seem to me that borders are a deep part of the problem. There isn’t enough room for everybody and the expansion of borders, to allow for boarders, seems to be, intuitively part of the answer, and I am seeing a language-based story. Maybe one day we will see flex in how we do care for each other around the world. Maybe what is important are not the differences, but a celebration of differences, of the uniqueness of our ways of being. Could we ever, hold hands around the world?

We have so many postcards that show this, letters, greeting cards? Could it be we aren’t seeing what is right in front of us, about an answer? What profits us all could just be this prophecy. A prophet. It’s pathetic, not prophetic, that we have had to do this dance for so long. And I say, maybe one day, we will ALL of us be dancing in the streets. I think about that Lionel Ritchie song, often that goes, All night long.

Sometimes I feel I am talking to myself. Maybe the very first important conversations begin, just this way.

There is a pack of cards. We are dealt the cards. Each one of us. And there are birds that fly ahead of the pack. Leader and leaders. Take me to your lieder. I believe this collective story, our story, is entirely, about the music. Signature of all things. A key signature.

Take heart! The world can be won. As hearts can be won! And won and One are aurally synonymous.

a handshake in friendship,

in truth/ruth

postscript: think about the word: FLEX

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Dreaming hearts: I’m coming home!

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Ruth Housman

Valentine’s Day is approaching. I have read, on line, at Aish.com, a feeling that it’s a very commercial holiday and that this is a day we should be celebrating all the time, and since life is all about this, why have this day? I couldn’t disagree more, and my feeling has to do with the very fact of love, and that yes, of course this needs to happen every day, but how can anyone fault a Day for LOVE? As for commercialism, people do have a choice in how they celebrate, and I could point out that there are no holidays that are not used for commercial purposes. There are other ways to think about this, and one of them is that we need to have outlets for our creativity, and also that we have an economy that is in part, dependent on selling goods. You might not feel this way if you were making a living selling your wares. And you can of course exhibit personal economy in how you spend for this holiday. This is a complex weave, and we are all part of this. Weave and we’ve are related aurally. I don’t like commercialism that is crass. No one does. And yes, it seems we are fast forwarded into our holidays. But there are also other ways of seeing this. It’s not an all or nothing, thing. Wouldn’t it be nice, if we could say, in entering 2011, there is a change going on toward Valentimes!

Personally, I have no problem with the teddy bears, the chocolate, the hearts, the roses and the sweet cards. Express your love. It’s certainly good practice for the rest of the year. And express is also about speed and how we do mobilize to do things we put off. Like telling each other how much we mean to each other. There is EAR in the word DEAR. Listen to each other.

I noticed that the ribbons on cars, that do remind us of those who are fighting, who fall in battle, well if you look at these closely you will see that the ribbon itself has an O and an X, as for love, XO. Take a closer look! I had this little epiphany yesterday. The O and the X do stream into each other.

I think the biggest battle we all face is in changing our filters, so we can see, around the world, that we are all of us, ONE. This notion of the “other” should be that we are all of us, “brothers”, sisters… Universe. It all belongs to us. A celebration of diversity. How about this for ring: a university of diversity. The one room school house!

As to ox itself and its repeats, the Aleph, or letter A, for those who don’t know, was originally the depiction of the ox. And so within the alpha bet, we have the idea of LOVE. Something surely, to think about.

Re FLOW and Flowers: Yesterday while walking the beach at Humarock towards Rexhame, with Maestro, our hound dog, I saw a bunch of brilliant orangey red flowers that were encased partially in ice, not real, a “still life”, and I took a picture of these. Later while driving on Commonwealth Avenue, I sat behind a car license plate 57PV78 that was charming in that there were faux flowers sticking up out of the roof. And this reminded me of my morning bouquet. And then of course there was this real bouquet in my home, intended for someone else. I expect that someone will soon get a wonderful bouquet courtesy of that florist (see preceding blog)

xoxoxoxoxo Dear Readers!

Music: I heard a beautiful rap song yesterday: J.Cole ft. Skylar Grey – I’m Coming Home

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Watch City or 5:05:05

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Ruth Housman

Is there anybody out there?  Pink Floyd (The Wall)

It’s getting late. But I want to record this, tonight, something that happened today that just “blew me away”.  Yesterday, while talking to David, who is in California, I happened to open the little Greek Dictionary on the couch “at random” and it opened directly to the word, Christmas. So I told David. Those reading this blog may recall I opened one of the twenty volumes of the OELD “at random” not long ago to the word, environmentalist, which seems to fit what I am doing, so fervently, much of the time, namely, writing to preserve the environment and endangered animals.

Now whatever I focus on, comes back. I know this.

So today I opened the side door of our home to go upstairs, a separate entry for the “inlaw” apartment. I haven’t gone into the house this way for a while. I saw, right away, a big bouquet of flowers, and immediately assumed they had come from my sister, for my birthday, and were placed here, thinking I would find them. But when I got closer, the roses were faded, and there was mold around the once lovely pine cone base. I read the card stuck into this arrangement and it was intended for a Mrs. Jane M who lives on Grafton Street, not my street. The Florist listed was Busy Bee, so I called them to inform them of this mistake. They traced the number on the card which was 050505 to tell me this bouquet was mistakenly brought over Christmas day! How strange. So I called and left a message on this family’s tape, about this coincidence.

There is more, because at 5:05 exactly I was behind a bus with 505 on it, headed down Commonwealth Avenue, and then, another bus, the 505 also, passed this bus at 5:05 PM.

Where was I headed? Into Waltham to see the 7PM movie, The King’s Speech, which is truly fabulous and brought me to tears. There were a lot of personal parallels in this movie as I was once a speech therapist and of course Logue was the name of the therapist involved in the movie, and I am punning all the time on the sound of this word, as in Blog Cabin. If you think this is a stretch, keep reading. I am very serious about all of this. I am following a language-based story that is now off the charts with respect to synchronicity.

I went to Watch City for dinner and had a wonderful waiter named Mike. I gave him my new card, which looks like a scene of Petra, through the key hole, the Siq. Yes, Siq and You Shall Find.

there is so much more… but I fear you would be, bored by too much about me. So share on, if you read this. I am interested in hearing from YOU.

PS. there is another meaning to Watch City, as in being observant. There is also for me a deep significance to watches, and time, but that’s for another blog.

I know, something amazing is happening!  We’re all part of the story.

PostScript: While watching the previews I happened to notice a new movie is coming called, The Eagle. So, if you read my former post you will read how David and I stopped to admire an eagle in a tree this past Sunday on Lake Street in Newton, MA. I am saying WOW doesn’t even begin to describe this story and what I am writing down in this blog does NOT, repeat, Does NOT, cover a day of synchronicity. I simply cannot put everything down here in this venue. I am talking about the astonishment of connects through story, for those who have just entered this Blog, which does build. Certainly it could be argued, it’s all coincidence. We’re talking here about STORY.

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when tears streak

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Ruth Housman

When sweeping things happen in life, they are often, weeping things. As it so often happens, these events do occur in waves, as there is this ebb and flow, in the web we call, life. My sister pointed out that when you look carefully at water, there is a double directionality to this. It can appear to move in one direction but when you focus on the other direction, it also appears to move that way, too. And so it is, a profound metaphor for life. I do notice that the word water itself contains this echo of WATT, a man connected to hydro electric, as OHM and OM seems to me, that humming, connected, both person within word.

I know we are not observant and that there is a consciousness beneath, call it the unconscious mind, an awareness, that takes in much more than what we mostly notice. For example, I am deeply aware of what people are wearing, where they sit, and that there is consonance to this, often amazing. As in colors, as in the style of dress. I do this also with words, seeing a story, I cannot tell, because others simply are not yet, aware, of what is right in front of them. So totally.

Here’s an example. I have a snake pendant, made of glass, truly beautifully wrought, that I purchased in Murano, Italy. I don’t wear it too often, because people have this aversion to snakes, and it seems really powerful symbolically to me, to wear this. In other words, in wearing, I am aware ( do you hear the echoic connect between these two words?). On one of these particularly rare occasions I wore this necklace. I came to Ottone Riccio’s fabulous poetry group on the South Shore, and who should be seated next to me but Ellen S. wearing a snake pin or pendant. I cannot quite remember. But it was remarkable and we did comment. Who seats us? Who dresses us? Why is there this amazing congruence that once, seen, is inescapable? The Cape, where I live, is a cloak, and in the word inescapable, is the echo itself of cape, that which is hidden, from view.

There is a song I love and keep playing, called Fix Me, by Cold Play. Maybe being a psychotherapist, or a “psycho” therapist, however you want to view me and these blogs, there is a reason I do deeply love, this song.

Hope your day is full of flow. There is a Czech writer with a very long name who wrote about FLOW. In following the river, so often, our tears do, flow. It’s about what tears at us, to the core, this bittersweet, this construction of universe, one verse.

Would you expect, if there IS a unitary principle to universe itself, that it would be contained by words? I do, and I am seeing and explicating this.

I am saying, this story is about love. Through and Through.

MUSIC: most songs, are LOVE songs

Thank You for the Days those endless days, those sacred days, you gave me…


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Monday, Monday!

Posted on February 7, 2011 by Ruth Housman

As the “daze” go by: I am feeling the bliss of having had so many friends come to celebrate my surprise Birthday Party, that warmth that suffuses the everything. To dance!

And the grandchildren made the most fabulous wrapping paper. Rainbows! So beautiful. To keep! My friend Barry wrote for me such a lovely poem with deep personal meaning. So many truly thoughtful gifts. The most wonderful of all, of course, being the “presence” of so many good friends. And yes! Let me not forget that glorious massage at the Mount Auburn Fitness Club, courtesy of Vicki and Bill. Yay, Alison! And then there was Sweet Wednesday, with Lisa, Dave, Busker and Jackie. So totally, beautiful! These are tears, of JOY!

Early evening, Sunday, as we were driving down Lake Street, I commanded David, STOP! I pointed to an eagle, in a tree. I just happened to spot “him”. It was one of those moments. WOW! We don’t see eagles that often, certainly not in an urban environment. As we pointed our fingers and our camera, people did stop, for the Aah of it, the AWE of it.

Just a few, “mirrors” or what I call, “mirroring” events in a life filled with mirrors. This does remind me of the Indian fabric that so typically has mirrors within, as part of the decorative aspects. Mirar: to wonder.

I got a call a few days ago from someone in my past. She didn’t think I’d remember her but I did. In fact, a long time ago she had an opportunity to start a business involving peacock feathers. So, right after this call it happened I bopped into Henry Bear’s Park on Huron Avenue in Cambridge, MA, and walked right into a lovely peacock puppet. But that’s not all. I opened a birthday gift and it was: a sweet plastic purse, decorated in a peacock feather motif from my friends Armand and Helene. O YES! (to quote Barbara C)

I visited the new diner in Newton, which is in the old train station, once a Starbucks, by the “T”.  Had dinner here and did enjoy this. Of course yesterday, after much deliberation it was my friend Laura who mentioned the Stars Diner in Hingham. I haven’t dined at a Diner in a long time, and so it happened to be, two in a row. This was also a really good meal! Hearty recommendations. In the bathroom there is an astrology chart: what’s in the stars for YOU.  Very cute.

Stars was the backdrop for the recent BCT (Boston Children’s Theater Production of Lilly and the Purple Plastic Purse, a fun outing with Madeline, my granddaughter.

Stars was also the subject of a conversation I had with Laura, about the lack of privacy in becoming a star. Would we want this? I said that curiously the word privacy is also, aurally, pry vacy. One of those “bipolar words” that so engage me.

Later we wound up at a very pink place, Marylou’s, very sweet, and each had delicious coffees. Truly inviting decor.  And I hear this is a chain on the South Shore. Worth a visit. FUN! Made me think of Valentine’s Day.

We attended a talk at Glastonbury Abbey in Hingham given by author Lynne Grifffin called Faith in Fiction: Discovering Spiritual Meaning by Reading Stories. The event is one of a series called Food For Thought. What we didn’t realize is that the monks really meant this, and there was a delicious luncheon spread provided! Lynne’s thesis is that many books and stories work on conscious and unconscious levels, containing as they do, levels of story, often deeply spiritual. She discussed several books of this nature such as Steinbeck’s East of Eden, Cormac McCarthy’s Home, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair.

I know Lynne is absolutely right about this. We all do experience Mirrors in Time, and there is a book by this very title (Joel Ziff). Fiction is deeply metaphoric of our lives, as I am saying, “there is another story running“. I got a notice of a workshop in poetry about this very subject several weeks ago. How poets insert metaphoric connects to history and myth, within the everyday. If you look closely you will see these connects running up and down all of our lives, through memoir.

Postscript: Yesterday I saw an eagle, and today I get a letter with an eagle feather pin within, as part of a sweet solicitation from The Native American Rights Fund. This has to remind me that my friend, Leonard Peltier is still languishing in jail, and I have heard he was not getting the medical care he needs.

What can I do?  Continue to write and advocate on his behalf.

MUSIC: Monday, Monday The Mamas and The Papas

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The Velveteen Rabbit

Posted on February 6, 2011 by Ruth Housman

I was thinking about the “hare” because it is now The Chinese Year of the Rabbit. There is an article about Hair I have been responding to on Chabad. Women are very invested in Hair. Their responses and mine, keep coming . Do you remember how, HAIR was the big hit musical in the Sixties? Most remember these words: this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Well we’re  now IN Aquarius, and like many of my peers, I came of Age in the Sixties, a time of great social action and social ferment. I think many of us who shared these X, are very mired still, in the Sixties.

For me, hares do deeply involve a deep sensitivity that is about hearing. They do have such tall, velvet ears, and sadly, it’s rabbits who are used to test cosmetics for the overall sensitivity of their ears. For me, it’s interesting the word rabbi is contained by rabbits, and I have often noted, how not all rabbis really listen, but rather delight in telling, and my own experience has been a non listening stance. Even been turned away, and very rudely, in trying to tell them something about myself. I was so surprised in thinking about all this some years ago, to discover there is actually, a blog, on line, by a woman rabbi, called, The Velveteen Rabbi.

One thing I know, and that is, a very good illustrator, Donna Green lives down the road and she has illustrated a version of this very book, The Velveteen Rabbit.

Do you remember Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail? They were the sweet rabbits in Beatrix Potter’s wonderful Tales of Peter Rabbit. As for Mopsy, I have spent so much time in Mopsy Kennedy’s class at the Cambridge Center, I and some others, like my friend Sarah B, well we deserve honorary membership to this class: Writing From Your Own Experience. One of Mopsy’s favorite old writing exercises is: Write About The History of Your Hair. Now that’s an often colorful experience.

As to hare, there is of course aurally hair, and, as my husband pointed out, the word “heretic“. Am I being heretical in saying, there is something about words? David joked and said, you are putting a “wave” into “permanent”. As for me, hair itself has always been an issue, because I am a true girl with curl. Unruly is the word. Wild. And also Wonderful in that wildness. Mine kinks, and many might say, this blog is very “kinky“. In fact, strangely, it was a woman my roomate Susan and I named, (in the Sixties) “The KINK” due to her last name, which contained the word Kink, who was the proximal cause of my meeting David in a Cambridge laundry ( The Gold Star), that proclaimed with a banner one day , that it was featured, in Love Story. You are probably too young to remember that movie. She was unpleasant when I came home one evening, so unpleasant, I left with my laundry. And ever since, I have found there is something very pleasant about folding hot laundry. I recently found a mat at Ocean State Job Lot, which I have placed outside my laundry, with the words, Everything Comes Out In the Wash.

Well, “hair” today, and gone, tomorrow. For children that is so often, a very hairy experience.

I have to say, on others, kinky hair looks just GREAT. On me, it’s hard to get to that point of seeing, because I have been unmercilessly teased my entire life. And teasing is something hair dressers actually once did, with  hair itself! Is straight, really, better? More beautiful? Or is it, a POV, a point of view, that is a POVerty of view? We should be careful. What we say, about others, has great power. Be positive! To be BLUNT about it: “You’re beautiful, it’s true!”

I am an Aquarian, the water bearer. I know there are many of us, “out there”, and that phrase can be taken many ways.  Believe it or not, I got a job working for a reality show as Dr. Ruth, a counselor with the kids on this show. When I was interviewed by a man, whose last name is Garabedian (M TV) the only question he wanted answered was what was my “sign”. I said Aquarius, and the job, was mine!

I just had to notice, the wonderful young man teaching my Mozart course at Brandeis Bolli is named, Gilad Harel!

Postscript: I had the urge to write to Leonard Peltier, who has been in prison these long years, a man many feel is totally innocent, as I do. A case of justice continuously denied, just ice. Right after I wrote this letter, and I mean, instantly, I got a request from the Leonard Peltier committee which tries to alert people to his needs. This request was to send a letter to Harley G. Lappin, Director, US Bureau of Prisons in Washington, as there are serious concerns regarding his medical care. I have just written a letter which I will send in tandem with my letter to Leonard. I do notice, that Lappin is very close to the French, lapin, which does mean, rabbit.

I just got a call from my friend Ann R., and told her this story, about the Velveteen Rabbit, and how rabbits keep “coming up” and she said, “Wow, I have to tell you, I just bought a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit.”

OK folks, we’re all in this together. We really are, and I am saying, if I sometimes get a bit scared by this, it’s what keeps me going. It’s like this: we’re all connected in more ways than we ever thought possible. And I say, “This story is about love. Hang on, we’re in for one hell of a ride!”

We’re entering, a new state of consciousness. There is no question about this. The visibility is rising. The biggest argument about all this is, Are we, then, puppets? I say no, we’re not and that if LOVE is the answer, then we would all willingly take that route. That is how I see it, and must. Somehow the bad stuff resolves. Just maybe, it’s not over, when, it’s over. And we have a lot of people saying this.

MUSIC: HAIR (what else?)

Thank You For the Days The Kinks

Books: Hideous Kinky

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Spellman

Posted on February 4, 2011 by Ruth Housman

As I drive to Regis College I pass The Spellman Museum, and it is a museum of stamps. Truly amazing and worth visiting. I also think about this, since I am doing something with words: Spell Man. And yet it’s not just spellings, since they change, as urth was once earth and does contain the letters for those named, Ruth. And yes, I would like to call myself an environmentalist. How about you? And…. you can do this with your very own name. Enjoy!

Nearby, there is a school bordered by Alphabet Street. I do smile when I pass this for the same reasons.

I opened a book called One Song, A New Illustrated Rumi (Michael Green) this morning and it opened to a Rumi poem that is very beautiful. The facing page takes a quote from this poem and it reads:

Wherever you stand/Be the soul of that place

Here is another quote from Teilhard de Chardin: Our duty as men and women is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation.

However you feel about life, how can you argue with the sensitivity, the love, that informs the eloquence of words that are, sheer poetry, about us all, and deeply, about LOVE?

Maybe, if in living our lives with a poetry of being, we can make of life a masterpiece, make of our lives, together, in that UNISON(G) a master peace.

I believe in the power of words, the eloquence, the elegance of words, that are about love. Send your love letters into the world. Soon, very soon, it’s THAT Day.

Happy Birthday, Whirrled!

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Incandescent

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Ruth Housman

I was thinking this morning about Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, how I learned about him for the first time, while doing research for a LLARC course at Regis College I called Man’s Search for Meaning.  He was a “maverick” Jesuit priest, truly a sensitive, deep man, who worked in science, as a respected anthropologist, but not, apologist, for his particular  insights about a world moving towards a universal respect, a climb towards compassion and love. He is associated with many important discoveries such as, Piltdown Man and Peking Man.

Teilhard didn’t say this, but I think he would “see” this, and that is, within the word “evolution” itself, is the word love, spelled backwards. Maybe I am thinking about Anthropologie today, since I got a darling tiny velvet purse with a star on it, from this unique store, with the words Aquarius, and Happy Birthday! on the outside, and of course, a coupon for a discount. I always look forward to visiting this store. Their displays alone are worth the visit, being so lovingly creative. I once called because they had taken down a display that had a bird motif and I so adored their “props”.

Teilhard’s personal story is fascinating, how fire itself, a spark, did inform his life, how he, was one of eleven children, and how his father, an amateur naturalist, promoted love of nature in his home, promoting the observation, and love for insects, stones, plants, and beyond, surely influencing his young and future life. His story is about love.

There is a beautiful, unrequited love story associated with Teilhard, told in letters, written about in the biographies of others. His life was “hard” and sweet. As for me, since he wrote about attaining the “Garden“, I do hear in his name Chardin, echoes of the French word, jardin, meaning, garden.

Here are just a few, beautiful quotes from this man: Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.

In the final analysis the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.

Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in ourselves.

One day I would like to write a play about Teilhard. I do believe some people are, incandescent!

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