Posts
Friday, January 31, 2020
I wrote this story for you
“I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
investing in the next generation
The Chaotic Side of Learning: Keeping High School Seniors From Falling Asleep
Atlanta English Teacher Susan Barber on “Creating
a family in the classroom.”
By Nick Ripatrazone
January 30, 2020
Barber says “investing in the next generation on a daily basis is a privilege—not a burden—and one teachers should not take lightly.” One of the best gifts we can give seniors as they leave our classrooms for the last time is to show them how reading helps us find ourselves, and helps us connect with others. Our communion with stories is a powerful one; a lesson that can become a practice for the rest of their lives.
The Ass of a Cadillac
When we drove home from the library the other night a big fat white Cadillac SUV was parked in front of us at the light. "Look at that thing. It looks like the set of JEOPARDY all you need is a barbie doll on the bumper to play host."
Education
The aim (of education) must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, can see in the service to the community their highest life achievement.
Albert Einstein
Humility
Writing, for me, means humility. It's a process that involves fear and doubt, especially if you're writing honestly.
KIRAN DESAI
Learning on Your Own
There is a great deal to be learned from programs, courses, and teachers. But I suggest working equally hard, throughout your life, at learning new things on your own, from whatever sources seem most useful to you. I have found that pursuing my own interests in various directions and to various sources of information can take me on fantastic adventures: I have stayed up till the early hours of the morning poring over old phone books; or following genealogical lines back hundreds of years; or reading a book about what lies under a certain French city; or comparing early maps of Manhattan as I search for a particular farmhouse. These adventures become as gripping as a good novel.
LYDIA DAVIS
Alan Lomax
It's the birthday of musicologist Alan Lomax (books by this author), born in Austin, Texas (1915). His father, John Lomax, was also a musicologist and wrote books like Cowboy Songs and Frontier Ballads (1910) and Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp (1918). Alan went to the University of Texas and then to Harvard to study philosophy, but after his mother's death, he dropped out of Harvard to accompany his dad on one of his folk song-collecting missions. He loved it so much that he decided to make it his life's work.
The Lomaxes went to the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where they met Huddie William Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly. Lomax wrote: "I'll never forget: He approached us all the way from the building where he worked, with his big twelve-string guitar in his hand. He sat down in front of us and proceeded to sing everything that we could think of in this beautiful, clear, trumpet-like voice that he had, with his hand simply flying on the strings."
After Lead Belly's release from prison, the Lomaxes helped put Lead Belly in the national spotlight.
Alan and John Lomax headed up the Library of Congress "Archive of American Folk Song," recording and preserving thousands of songs.
-Writer's Almanac
Turtle in the Road by Faith Shearin
Turtle in the Road
by Faith Shearin
It was the spring before we moved again, a list of what
we must do on the refrigerator, when my daughter
and I found a turtle in the road. He was not gentle
or shy, not properly afraid of the cars that swerved
around his mistake. I thought I might encourage him
towards safety with a stick but each time I touched
his tail he turned fiercely to show me what he thought
of my prodding. He had a raisin head, the legs of
a fat dwarf, the tail of a dinosaur. His shell was a deep
green secret he had kept his whole life. I could not tell
how old he was but his claws suggested years of
reaching. I was afraid to pick him up, afraid of the way
he snapped his jaws, but I wanted to help him return
to the woods which watched him with an ancient
detachment. I felt I understood him because I didn't
want to move either; I was tired of going from one place
to another: the introductions, the goodbyes. I was sick
of getting ready, of unpacking, of mail sent to places
where I used to live. At last I put my stick away
and left him to decide which direction was best.
If I forced him off the road he might return later.
My daughter and I stood awhile, considering him.
He was a traveler from the time of reptiles, a creature
who wore his house like a jacket. I don't know
if he survived his afternoon in the road; I am still
thinking of the way his eyes watched me go.
I can't forget his terrible legs, so determined
to take him somewhere, his tail which pointed
behind him at the dark spaces between the trees.
- Faith Shearin from Moving the Piano. Stephen F. Austin University Press © 2011
winner of the 2005 James Beard award
Classic Boston baked beans
This legume dish is high in folate and a good source of iron. Folate helps form red blood cells, which contain iron. Both nutrients are important in preventing anemia.
Ingredients
2 cup(s) beans, white
small, picked over and rinsed, soaked overnight and drained
4 cup(s) water
2 whole bay leaf
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 whole onion(s), yellow
chopped
1/2 cup(s) molasses, light
1 1/2 tablespoon mustard, dry
3 slice(s) bacon, thick cut
cut into 1/2-inch pieces
Instructions
Serves 12
In a large, ovenproof pot with a tight-fitting lid or in a Dutch oven, combine the beans, water, bay leaves and 1/2 teaspoon of the salt over high heat. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover partially and simmer until the beans have softened but are still firm, 65 to 75 minutes. Remove from the heat and discard the bay leaves. Don't drain the beans.
Preheat the oven to 350 F.
Stir the onion, molasses, mustard, bacon and the remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt into the beans. Cover and bake until the beans are tender and coated with a light syrup, 4 1/2 to 5 hours. Check periodically to make sure the beans don't dry out, stirring and adding hot water as needed.
Serving size: about 1/3 cup
Source: This recipe is one of 150 recipes collected in "The New Mayo Clinic Cookbook," published by Mayo Clinic Health Information and Oxmoor House, and winner of the 2005 James Beard award.
August Wilson
I just write stuff down and pile it up, and when I get enough stuff, I spread it out and look at it and figure out how to use it.
If you want to participate in life, you have to deny your identity.
I think of dying every day... At a certain age, you should be prepared to go at any time.
August Wilson
August Wilson: Writing is Rewarding
I don't write particularly to effect social change. I believe writing can do that, but that's not why I write.
Keep your hands moving. Writing is rewriting.
My plays are ultimately about love, honor, duty, betrayal.
Anything you want to know, you ask the characters.
I try to explore, in terms of the life I know best, those things which are common to all cultures.
I don't look at our society today too much. My focus is still in the past, and part of the reason is because what I do - the wellspring of art, or what I do - l get from the blues. So I listen to the music of a particular period that I'm working on, and I think inside the music is clues to what is happening with the people.
August Wilson
I'm a De Niro fan. I went eleven years without seeing a movie; the last one before that, February 1980, was De Niro and Scorsese in 'Raging Bull,' and when I went back, it was 'Cape Fear,' with De Niro and Scorsese. I picked up right where I left off at.
August Wilson
Communal
A novelist writes a novel, and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the communal nature of the audience is like having five hundred people read your novel and respond to it at the same time. I find that thrilling.
August Wilson
Bear Witness
I think it was the ability of the theater to communicate ideas and extol virtues that drew me to it. And also, I was, and remain, fascinated by the idea of an audience as a community of people who gather willingly to bear witness.
August Wilson
August Wilson
From Romare Bearden I learned that the fullness and richness of everyday life can be rendered without compromise or sentimentality.
-August Wilson
Love and Laughter
All you need in the world is love and laughter. That's all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other.
-August Wilson
Library
I dropped out of school, but I didn't drop out of life. I would leave the house each morning and go to the main branch of the Carnegie Library in Oakland where they had all the books in the world... I felt suddenly liberated from the constraints of a pre-arranged curriculum that labored through one book in eight months.
-August Wilson
Doing Right
“Don't you try and go through life worrying about if somebody like you or not. You best be making sure they doing right by you.”
― August Wilson, Fences
Filled it
“When your daddy walked through the house he was so big he filled it up. That was my first mistake. Not to make him leave room for me.”
― August Wilson, Fences
Life
“I done learned my mistake and learned to do what's right by it. You still trying to get something for nothing. Life don't owe you nothing. You owe it to yourself.
- Troy -”
― August Wilson, Fences
Sins of Our Fathers
“When the sins of our fathers visit us
We do not have to play host.
We can banish them with forgiveness
As God, in his His Largeness and Laws.”
-August Wilson
Valley of the Blind
“In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
― August Wilson, Gem of the Ocean
Be Right with Yourself
“You got to be right with yourself before you can be right with anybody else.”
― August Wilson
Family
“I been with strangers all day and they treated me like family. I come in here to family and you treat me like a stranger.”
― August Wilson, The Piano Lesson
Confront
“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.”
― August Wilson
Richard Peck
The only way you can write is by the light of the bridges burning behind you.
RICHARD PECK
Strangers
“I been with strangers all day and they treated me like family. I come in here to family and you treat me like a stranger.”
― August Wilson, The Piano Lesson
August Wison
When I first started writing plays I couldn’t write good dialogue because I didn’t respect how black people talked. I thought that in order to make art out of their dialogue I had to change it, make it into something different. Once I learned to value and respect my characters, I could really hear them. I let them start talking.
AUGUST WILSON
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Willa Cather
Art, it seems to me, should simplify. That, indeed, is very nearly the whole of the higher artistic process; finding what conventions of form and what detail one can do without and yet preserve the spirit of the whole—so that all that one has suppressed and cut away is there to the reader’s consciousness as much as if it were in type on the page. Millet had done hundreds of sketches of peasants sowing grain, some of them very complicated and interesting, but when he came to paint the spirit of them all into one picture, “The Sower,” the composition is so simple that it seems inevitable. All the discarded sketches that went before made the picture what it finally became, and the process was all the time one of simplifying, of sacrificing many conceptions good in themselves for one that was better and more universal.
Any first rate novel or story must have in it the strength of a dozen fairly good stories that have been sacrificed to it. A good workman can’t be a cheap workman; he can’t be stingy about wasting material, and he cannot compromise.
WILLA CATHER
David Hare’s 10 Rules for Writers
1. Write only when you have something to say.
2. Never take advice from anyone with no investment in the outcome.
3. Style is the art of getting yourself out of the way, not putting yourself in it.
4. If nobody will put your play on, put it on yourself.
5. Jokes are like hands and feet for a painter. They may not be what you want to end up doing but you have to master them in the meanwhile.
6. Theatre primarily belongs to the young.
7. No one has ever achieved consistency as a screenwriter.
8. Never go to a TV personality festival masquerading as a literary festival.
9. Never complain of being misunderstood. You can choose to be understood, or you can choose not to.
10. The two most depressing words in the English language are "literary fiction."
The Secret
My teacher told me that the secret subject of any story worth telling is time, but you can never say its name.
DAVID MILCH
Most Alive
The first thing that distinguishes a #writer is that he is most alive when alone.
MARTIN AMIS
Nancy Hathaway
[If you have writer's block] force yourself to write non-stop for twenty or thirty minutes: no deletions, no erasures, no pauses. If that doesn't work, take a break. Take a walk. Pack up your writing supplies and go someplace new. Sit in a coffee shop, find a cozy spot in a library, go to a park. If you're truly desperate, go away for a few days. Take a train to a distant city and write onboard (on Amtrak, you can actually plug in your computer. But coffee is essential: without it, the train will rock you to sleep.) It often helps to do something entirely nonverbal, like making a collage or playing music. And it always helps to understand that writer's block is a widespread malady. To strengthen your feeling of solidarity with the scribbling classes, watch these movies: The Shining, Misery, Barton Fink, Deconstructing Harry, all of which explore the consequences of writer's block.
NANCY HATHAWAY
Roxana Robinson
A writer is like a tuning fork: We respond when we’re struck by something. The thing is to pay attention, to be ready for radical empathy. If we empty ourselves of ourselves we’ll be able to vibrate in synchrony with something deep and powerful. If we’re lucky we’ll transmit a strong pure note, one that isn’t ours, but which passes through us. If we’re lucky, it will be a note that reverberates and expands, one that other people will hear and understand.
ROXANA ROBINSON
George Bernard Shaw
Give a man health and a course to steer, and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not.
George Bernard Shaw
Sound of Winning
Lottery dangles $5,000 for winning jingle - WCVB
16 hours ago - The Massachusetts Lottery is giving players a new way to win a cash prize: by writing a jingle to be used with the Lottery's latest advertising campaign. ... There's up to $5,000 in it for the "Sound of Winning" contest winner, ... Connelly Partners is the firm behind most of the Lottery's recent ad campaigns, ...
can hear it now -
Blow your pay
the Massachusetts way
Play the Mass Lottery today!!!
-Gerry
Brautigan Quotes
“Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee affords.”
― Richard Brautigan
“Love Poem
It's so nice
to wake up in the morning
all alone
and not have to tell somebody
you love them
when you don't love them
any more.”
― Richard Brautigan
“all of us have a place in history. mine is clouds.”
― Richard Brautigan
“I drank coffee and read old books and waited for the year to end.”
― Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America
“I have always wanted to write a book that ended with the word 'mayonnaise.”
― Richard Brautigan
“I will be very careful the next time I fall in love, she told herself. Also, she had made a promise to herself that she intended on keeping. She was never going to go out with another writer: no matter how charming, sensitive, inventive or fun they could be. They weren't worth it in the long run. They were emotionally too expensive and the upkeep was complicated. They were like having a vacuum cleaner around the house that broke all the time and only Einstein could fix it. She wanted her next lover to be a broom.”
― Richard Brautigan, Sombrero Fallout
“Finding is losing something else.
I think about, perhaps even mourn,
what I lost to find this”
― Richard Brautigan, Loading Mercury With a Pitchfork
“Karma Repair Kit Items 1-4.
1.Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.
2.Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.
3.Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.
4.”
― Richard Brautigan
“I'll tell you about it because I am here and you are distant.”
― Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar
“My Name
“I guess you are kind of curious as to who I am, but I am one of those who do not have a regular name. My name depends on you. Just call me whatever is in your mind.
If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago: Somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer.
That is my name.
Perhaps it was raining very hard.
That is my name.
Or somebody wanted you to do something. You did it. Then they told you what you did was wrong—“Sorry for the mistake,”—and you had to do something else.
That is my name.
Perhaps it was a game you played when you were a child or something that came idly into your mind when you were old and sitting in a chair near the window.
That is my name.
Or you walked someplace. There were flowers all around.
That is my name.
Perhaps you stared into a river. There as something near you who loved you. They were about to touch you. You could feel this before it happened. Then it happened.
That is my name.”
― Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar
“Boo, Forever
Spinning like a ghost
on the bottom of a
top,
I'm haunted by all
the space that I
will live without
you.”
― Richard Brautigan, The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster
“I'm in a constant process of thinking about things. ”
― Richard Brautigan
“Money is sad shit”
― Richard Brautigan, The Edna Webster Collection of Undiscovered Writing
“Im haunted a little this evening by feelings that have no vocabulary and events that should be explained in dimensions of lint rather than words.
Ive been examining half-scraps of my childhood. They are pieces of distant life that have no form or meaning. They are things that just happened like lint.”
― Richard Brautigan
“I’ll affect you slowly
as if you were having a picnic in a dream.
There will be no ants.
It won’t rain.”
― Richard Brautigan, Loading Mercury With a Pitchfork
“In Watermelon Sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar.”
― Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar
“Probably the closest things to perfection are the huge absolutely empty holes that astronomers have recently discovered in space. If there's nothing there, how can anything go wrong?”
― Richard Brautigan
“I had a good-talking candle last night in my bedroom. I was very tired but I wanted somebody to be with me, so I lit a candle and listened to its comfortable voice of light until I was asleep.”
― Richard Brautigan
“I feel as if I am an ad
for the sale of a haunted house:
18 rooms
$37,000
I’m yours
ghosts and all.”
― Richard Brautigan
“If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago:
Somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer.
That is my name.”
― Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar
“Excuse me, I said. I thought you were a trout stream.
I'm not, she said.”
― Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America
“One day
Time will die
And love will bury it”
― Richard Brautigan
“I saw thousands of pumpkins last night
come floating in on the tide,
bumping up against the rocks and
rolling up on the beaches;
it must be Halloween in the sea”
― Richard Brautigan, The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster
“The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster
When you take your pill
it's like a mine disaster.
I think of all the people
lost inside you.”
― Richard Brautigan, The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster
“My God, ma'am, you're so pretty I'd walk ten miles barefooted on a freezing morning to stand in your shit.”
― Richard Brautigan, The Abortion
“Hinged to forgetfulness like a door,
she slowly closed out of sight,
and she was the woman I loved,
but too many times she slept like
a mechanical deer in my caresses,
and I ached in the metal silence
of her dreams.”
― Richard Brautigan, Rommel Drives on Deep Into Egypt
“All girls should have a poem
written for them even if
we have to turn this God-damn world
upside down to do it.”
― Richard Brautigan
“Your Catfish Friend
If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
of my affection
and think, “It's beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
somebody loved me,”
I'd love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
at peace,
and ask yourself, “I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them.”
― Richard Brautigan, The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster
Richard Brautigan's Birthday
It's the birthday of poet and novelist Richard Gary Brautigan, (books by this author) born in Tacoma, Washington (1935). He moved to San Francisco, where he read his poetry at psychedelic rock concerts, helped produce underground newspapers, and became involved with the Beat Movement. He had long blond hair and granny glasses.
In the summer of 1961, he went camping with his wife and young daughter in Idaho's Stanley Basin. He spent his days hiking, and it was there, sitting next to trout streams with his portable typewriter, that he wrote his most famous work, Trout Fishing in America (1967).
Writer's Almanac
New York Style Narcissism
The president is shopping for the defense that keeps him in power. This was just like my childhood. My mother shopped for doctors to keep herself in power and me under the knife.
Bucket of Dough
My incubating bucket of multigrain sourdough is lifting off it's lid. I make bread using the slow wet dough method. I mix it up and keep it in the fridge for three days. Today or tomorrow will be baking day.
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Roasted Red Pepper Hummus
I made hummus from cooking my dried chickpeas in my instant pot for one hour. After they cooled I did the usual adding of tahini, fresh squeezed lemons, garlic, salt, cumin, but then I added roasted red peppers to the chick peas in the Cuisinart. It came out great! The color is pretty too.
Hard Pretzels for Hard Times
https://foodomania.com/hard-pretzels/
by Kavitha Ramaswamy
Hard Pretzels
Author: Kavitha
Prep time: 3 hours
Cook time: 40 mins
Total time: 3 hours 40 mins
Serves: 20-25 mini Pretzels or Pretzel Sticks
Ingredients
1/3 cup Warm Water
1/2 teaspoon Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Instant Yeast * (Note 1)
1 cup All Purpose Flour
1/3 teaspoon Salt
For Baking Soda Bath
2 cups Water
2* Tablespoon Baking Soda (original recipe had 1 TBS, but 2 is correct)
Others
Melted Butter or Egg Wash (for brushing on the Pretzels)
Rock Salt or Brown Sugar or Granulated Sugar (for sprinkling on the Pretzels)
Note 1
Or use 3/4 teaspoon Active Dry Yeast. When adding yeast to warm water, wait for 3-4 minutes for it to bubble up before adding to flour
Instructions
To warm water add sugar and yeast and let it rest for 2 minutes. (If using active dry yeast, make sure the mixture bubbles)
Mix together flour, salt.
Add the yeast mixture to the flour
Knead to a smooth & elastic dough
Place in an oiled bowl and let it rise for 1-2 hours or until the dough doubles in volume.
Punch it down and roll it out to a log. Cut equal sized small pieces (pillows) of dough.
Roll out each piece of dough to a thin, long rope.
Take one end of the rope and bring it to the center. Take the other end of the rope and bring it across the first end. Press the ends tightly on the dough rope to seal them.
Alternatively, just roll out a long rope and cut into equally sized sticks.
Place all the pretzels on a baking sheet. Preheat oven to 180 C / 350 F.
Bring a pot of water to boil and dissolve some baking soda in it.
Take each piece of pretzels on a slotted spoon. Gently place it into the hot water and hold till it drops into the water. Let it boil for 10-20 seconds or until it starts to float. Remove with a slotted spoon.
Place each “cooked” Pretzel back to the same baking sheet.
Brush each pretzel with melted butter or egg wash and sprinkle some brown sugar or Rock Salt on it.
Bake in a preheated oven 180 C/ 350 F for 40 minutes or until the pretzels are hard and crunchy.
(Bake for 30 minutes for a softer, chewier version of the Hard Pretzels)
Let it cool for a bit and remove the pretzels. Eat warm or cold with any dipping of your choice.
Square Waves!
This beautiful ocean phenomenon happens when the waves collide from different angles and form squares in the water. ... It happens when waves from one weather system continue even though a change in the wind has created different waves. The waves then run at an angle from each other causing this amazing sight.
Richard Feynman
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
—Professor Richard Feynman
Even in Siberia
“Even in Siberia there is happiness.”
― Anton Chekhov
“Do you see that tree? It is dead but it still sways in the wind with the others. I think it would be like that with me. That if I died I would still be part of life in one way or another.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Three Sisters
“I was oppressed with a sense of vague discontent and dissatisfaction with my own life, which was passing so quickly and uninterestingly, and I kept thinking it would be a good thing if I could tear my heart out of my breast, that heart which had grown so weary of life.”
― Anton Chekhov
“These people have learned not from books, but in the fields, in the wood, on the river bank. Their teachers have been the birds themselves, when they sang to them, the sun when it left a glow of crimson behind it at setting, the very trees, and wild herbs.”
― Anton Chekhov
“...and with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.”
― Anton Chekhov
Worn Out
“Why are we worn out? Why do we, who start out so passionate, brave, noble, believing, become totally bankrupt by the age of thirty or thirty-five? Why is it that one is extinguished by consumption, another puts a bullet in his head, a third seeks oblivion in vodka, cards, a fourth, in order to stifle fear and anguish, cynically tramples underfoot the portrait of his pure, beautiful youth? Why is it that, once fallen, we do not try to rise, and, having lost one thing, we do not seek another? Why?”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels
“And I despise your books, I despise wisdom and the blessings of this world. It is all worthless, fleeting, illusory, and deceptive, like a mirage. You may be proud, wise, and fine, but death will wipe you off the face of the earth as though you were no more than mice burrowing under the floor, and your posterity, your history, your immortal geniuses will burn or freeze together with the earthly globe.”
― Anton Chekhov
“The task of a writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.”
― Chekhov, Anton Chekhov, Anton
“The happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burden in silence. Without this silence, happiness would be impossible.”
― Anton Chekhov
“There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble."
(The Mill)”
― Anton Chekhov, The Portable Chekhov
Peace
“Man is what he believes.”
― Anton Chekhov
“We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.”
― Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
“There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you’re angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you’re asked.”
― Anton Chekhov
“A woman can become a man's friend only in the following stages - first an acquaintance, next a mistress, and only then a friend.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Three Sisters
“There is nothing more awful, insulting, and depressing than banality.”
― Anton Pavlovič Čechov
“If ever my life can be of any use to you, come and claim it.”
― Anton Chekhov
“To fear love is to fear life, and those whose fear life are already three parts dead...”
― Anton Chekhov
Satisfy
“Civilized people must, I believe, satisfy the following criteria:
1) They respect human beings as individuals and are therefore always tolerant, gentle, courteous and amenable ... They do not create scenes over a hammer or a mislaid eraser; they do not make you feel they are conferring a great benefit on you when they live with you, and they don't make a scandal when they leave. (...)
2) They have compassion for other people besides beggars and cats. Their hearts suffer the pain of what is hidden to the naked eye. (...)
3) They respect other people's property, and therefore pay their debts.
4) They are not devious, and they fear lies as they fear fire. They don't tell lies even in the most trivial matters. To lie to someone is to insult them, and the liar is diminished in the eyes of the person he lies to. Civilized people don't put on airs; they behave in the street as they would at home, they don't show off to impress their juniors. (...)
5) They don't run themselves down in order to provoke the sympathy of others. They don't play on other people's heartstrings to be sighed over and cosseted ... that sort of thing is just cheap striving for effects, it's vulgar, old hat and false. (...)
6) They are not vain. They don't waste time with the fake jewellery of hobnobbing with celebrities, being permitted to shake the hand of a drunken [judicial orator], the exaggerated bonhomie of the first person they meet at the Salon, being the life and soul of the bar ... They regard prases like 'I am a representative of the Press!!' -- the sort of thing one only hears from [very minor journalists] -- as absurd. If they have done a brass farthing's work they don't pass it off as if it were 100 roubles' by swanking about with their portfolios, and they don't boast of being able to gain admission to places other people aren't allowed in (...) True talent always sits in the shade, mingles with the crowd, avoids the limelight ... As Krylov said, the empty barrel makes more noise than the full one. (...)
7) If they do possess talent, they value it ... They take pride in it ... they know they have a responsibility to exert a civilizing influence on [others] rather than aimlessly hanging out with them. And they are fastidious in their habits. (...)
8) They work at developing their aesthetic sensibility ... Civilized people don't simply obey their baser instincts ... they require mens sana in corpore sano.
And so on. That's what civilized people are like ... Reading Pickwick and learning a speech from Faust by heart is not enough if your aim is to become a truly civilized person and not to sink below the level of your surroundings.
[From a letter to Nikolay Chekhov, March 1886]”
― Anton Chekhov, A Life in Letters
Don't Marry
“You have lost your reason and taken the wrong path. You have taken lies for truth, and hideousness for beauty. You would marvel if, owing to strange events of some sorts, frogs and lizards suddenly grew on apple and orange trees instead of fruit, or if roses began to smell like a sweating horse; so I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth. I don't want to understand you.”
― Anton Chekhov
“Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.”
― Anton Chekhov
“Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress. When I get fed up with one, I spend the night with the other”
― Anton Chekhov
“If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry.”
― Anton Chekhov, Notebook of Anton Chekhov
“The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.”
“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
― Anton Chekhov
“Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and when he dies only the five senses that we know perish with him, and the other ninety-five remain alive.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard
“Any idiot can face a crisis; it's this day-to-day living that wears you out.”
― Anton Chekhov
“The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.”
― Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
“What a fine weather today! Can’t choose whether to drink tea or to hang myself.”
― A.P. Chekhov
“The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it.”
― Anton Chekhov
“When asked, "Why do you always wear black?", he said, "I am mourning for my life.”
― Anton Chekhov
“Wisdom.... comes not from age, but from education and learning.”
― Anton Chekhov
Happy Birthday Chekov
It's the birthday of writer Anton Chekhov, (books by this author) born in Taganrog, Russia (1860). Chekhov is one of the inventors of the modern short story. His stories were usually short, full of passive characters, and without much of a plot. They didn't have big emotional climaxes, and they usually ended with a moment that revealed something about the main characters' lives.
His first play, The Seagull, opened in 1885. It got horrible reviews, and he walked out on it at intermission and vowed never to write another play. But two years later, it was produced again, this time to rave reviews. The success inspired him to go on to write the plays Three Sisters (1901), The Cherry Orchard (1904), and Uncle Vanya (1897), which are now considered classics.
Chekhov said, "Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out."
Writer's Almanac
Tash Aw
I think terror is probably the most important feeling for me as a writer. On every page, I have to face the possibility that I might not be able to finish this novel. It’s the only thing that will push me through it.
TASH AW
The Secret Is Not to Panic
The only thing I've got better at as the years have gone by is I've grown more resigned to the fact that it comes hard. You realize that hesitation and frustration and waiting are part of the process, and you don't panic. I get a lot better at not panicking. I get up every morning early if it's a writing day and I will do nothing else but write that day. But the secret is not to panic if it doesn't come.
CLIVE JAMES
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
stalactites and stalagmites
What is the difference between stalactites and stalagmites?
Stalactite and stalagmite are both nouns. They each refer to mineral deposits in a cave, but stalactites form on the ceilings of caves, while stalagmites are found on the ground. ... Stalactite contains the letter c, like in ceiling—which is where stalactites form.
ZORA NEALE HURSTON
I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.
ZORA NEALE HURSTON
Make your Own Moon Cakes
How to Make TRADITIONAL Home Style Chinese Moon Cakes!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRXDddW7JnY
Happy Moon Festival! Here's a mooncake recipe to share with your friends to get into the spirit!
INGREDIENTS
Dough:
56g golden syrup http://amzn.to/2xPvQpJ
1.5g Potassium Carbonate & Sodium Bi-Carbonate Solution (Lye Water)
85g all-purpose flour
20g peanut oil
Filling:
Red bean paste (30g/mooncake without egg yolk, 25g with egg yolk)
Salted duck egg yolks (optional)
Egg wash:
Medium egg yolk
Pinch of salt
Mooncake Molds: http://amzn.to/2g5FfSi
https://www.chinasichuanfood.com/sweet-red-bean-paste/
Chinese Tea Leaf Eggs
Chinese Tea Leaf Eggs
Recipe by: SOYGIRL2
"One of my favorite dishes when I head back home; it combines hard-boiled eggs with the subtle flavor of anise and the deep brown hues of black tea and soy. The cracked patterns from the broken shells make these quite attractive! I eat these sliced in quarters and chilled as a side dish, appetizer, or snack. Recipe courtesy of Mom."
Ingredients
11 h 20 m
8 servings
76 cals
8 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups water
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon black soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons black tea leaves
2 pods star anise
1 (2 inch) piece cinnamon stick
1 tablespoon tangerine zest
Add all ingredients to list
Directions
Prep
20 m
Cook
3 h
Ready In
11 h 20 m
In a large saucepan, combine eggs and 1 teaspoon salt; cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from heat, drain, and cool. When cool, tap eggs with the back of a spoon to crack shells (do not remove shells).
In a large saucepan, combine 3 cups water, soy sauce, black soy sauce, salt, tea leaves, star anise, cinnamon stick, and tangerine zest. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 3 hours. Remove from heat, add eggs, and let steep for at least 8 hours.
Notes
Eggs can steep up to 1 1/2 days for richer flavor. Store eggs unpeeled and tightly sealed in refrigerator. They will keep 4 to 5 days.
Nutrition Facts
Per Serving: 76 calories; 5 g fat; 1.2 g carbohydrates; 6.6 g protein; 186 mg cholesterol; 659 mg sodium. Full nutrition
Learning how to Live
I learned how to live by shopping at the the little Asian market. I watch my neighborhood Lao and Hmong families making soup, dumplings and drying beef on the fire escape. Every summer they're singing outside during summer feast nights.
Mushrooms go Mainstream
I don't endorse this but I am trying to keep an open mind for others. For treating Cancer symptoms
from-auschwitzs-gate-of-hell
Article
For her, and for others, there was still anger that needed to be voiced – not directed at the German architects of the plan to eliminate the world’s Jews, but at a world that had stood by and let it happen. “Where was everybody?” asked Dagan. “Where was the world, who could see everything and yet did nothing to save all those thousands?” She was interrupted by applause.
[...]
This was not Renee’s first trip back. She has made the trek to Auschwitz often, despite admitting: “I can’t even begin to tell you how much I hate it.” Before every visit, including this one, “I get so nervous, it feels terrible.” She gestured towards her abdomen, to indicate the knot in her stomach. Asked if this would be her last visit, she nodded before saying: “At my age, I don’t make any plans.”
And yet she forced herself to return, pulled there by the same sense of obligation that tugged at so many of the remaining survivors. “I feel I have to. If I survived, I need to come back to show people what happened.”
She shares the fear of many survivors too that once they have gone, once living memory becomes dead history, the power of the Shoah will fade, that people will forget its agony and its lessons. They worry that even though the attempted elimination of the Jews was one of the most documented crimes in human history, that it will lose its force once there are no longer living, breathing human beings around to say: “I was there.”
But she looks around today’s world and worries that all the testimony and all the evidence are not working anyway. Recent acts of terror, murderous acts of violence, including against Jews, have left their mark on her. “I know that the world hasn’t learned from our experience,” she said. “It’s forgetting.”
Colette
“You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.”
― Colette
“I went to collect the few personal belongings which...I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.”
― Colette
“It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses. ”
― Colette
“Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet.”
― Colette
“Time spent with a cat is never wasted.”
― Colette
“Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it."
(Casual Chance, 1964)”
― Colette
“There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.”
― Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, Oeuvres complètes en seize volumes
“There are no ordinary cats.”
― Colette
“Hope costs nothing. ”
― Colette
“In its early stages, insomnia is almost an oasis in which those who have to think or suffer darkly take refuge.”
― Colette
“What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.”
― Colette
“No one asked you to be happy. Get to work.”
― Colette
“I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer.”
― Collette, Chéri
“look for a long time at what pleases you, and longer still at what pains you...”
― Colette
“Be happy.
It's one way of being wise.”
― Colette
“When she raises her eyelids, it's as if she were taking off all her clothes.”
― Colette, Claudine and Annie
“The woman who thinks she is intelligent demands equal rights with men. A woman who is intelligent does not.”
― Colette
“I did not look for her, because I was afraid of dispelling the mystery we attach to people whom we know only casually.”
― Colette, The Pure and the Impure
“If he's getting married, he's not longer interesting.”
― Colette, Gigi and The Cat
“Books, books, books. It was not that I read so much. I read and re-read the same ones. But all of them were necessary to me. Their presence, their smell, the letters of their titles, and the texture of their leather bindings.”
― Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
“I want nothing from love, in short, but love.”
― Colette, The Vagabond
“To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one. ”
― Colette
“Music is love in search of a word.”
― Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
“Total absence of humor renders life impossible.”
― Colette, Chance Acquaintances and Julie de Carneilhan
“So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days.”
― Colette, The Vagabond
“But what is the heart, madame? It's worth less than people think. it's quite accommodating, it accepts anything. You give it whatever you have, it's not very particular. But the body... Ha! That's something else again! It has a cultivated taste, as they say, it knows what it wants. A heart doesn't choose, and one always ends up by loving.”
― Colette, The Pure and the Impure
“I have found my voice again and the art of using it...”
― Colette, The Vagabond
“You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm!”
― Collette
“To be astonished is one of the surest ways of not growing old too quickly.”
― Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
“Then, bidding farewell to The Knick-Knack, I went to collect the few personal belongings which, at that time, I held to be invaluable: my cat, my resolve to travel, and my solitude.”
― Colette, Gigi, Julie de Carneilhan, and Chance Acquaintances: Three Short Novels
Happy Birthday Colette
It is the birthday of the writer who said, "Be happy. It's one way of being wise." That's Colette, (books by this author) born in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, in the Burgundy Region of France (1873). She's the author of more than 70 books of fiction, memoir, and journalism, including the novel Gigi (1944), which has spawned a number of stage and film adaptations.
When she was 20, she married an older man, a writer and music critic who wrote under the pen name "Monsieur Willy." The young Colette wrote under his pen name, too -- her husband locked her up in a room until she had produced a satisfactory amount of writing each day. She fled their marriage in her early 30s, danced half-naked in music halls around Paris, and once incited a riot during a performance at the Moulin Rouge. She became lovers with several women, married three times, gave birth to a child at the age of 40 whom she left to be raised by an English nanny, had an affair in her 50s with her 16-year-old stepson, and was forever scandalizing her French contemporaries. But she was also highly respected, the winner of all sorts of prestigious international literary awards. And when she died at the age of 81, she was the first woman in France to be honored with an official state funeral.
Colette wrote: "Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it."
She once said, "What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner."
Writer's Almanac
Food Waste To Make Electricity
Chew On This: Farmers Are Using Food Waste To Make Electricity
November 30, 20198:42 AM ET
Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday
Allison Aubrey
Transcript
Peter Melnik, a fourth-generation dairy farmer, owns Bar-Way Farm, Inc. in Deerfield, Mass. He has an anaerobic digester on his farm that converts food waste into renewable energy.
Allison Aubrey/NPR
This story was produced as part of a collaboration with the PBS NewsHour
As the season of big holiday meals kicks off, it's as good a time as any to reflect on just how much food goes to waste.
If you piled up all the food that's not eaten over the course of a year in the U.S., it would be enough to fill a skyscraper in Chicago about 44 times, according to an estimate from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
And, when all this food rots in a landfill, it emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. In fact, a recent report from the United Nations from a panel of climate experts estimates that up to 10 percent of all human-made greenhouse gas emissions are linked to food waste.
So, here's one solution to the problem: Dairy farmers in Massachusetts are using food waste to create electricity. They feed waste into anaerobic digesters, built and operated by Vanguard Renewables, which capture the methane emissions and make renewable energy.
The process begins by gathering wasted food from around the state, including from many Whole Foods locations. We visited the chain's store in Shrewsbury, Mass., which has installed a Grind2Energy system. It's an industrial-strength grinder that gobbles up all the scraps of food the store can't sell, explains Karen Franczyk, who is the sustainability program manager for Whole Foods' North Atlantic region.
The machine will grind up all kinds of food waste — "everything from bones, we put whole fish in here, to vegetables to dry items like rice or grains," Franczyk says as the grinder is loaded. It also takes frying fats and greases.
Watch a video on farms turning food waste into renewable energy, in collaboration with PBS NewsHour.
YouTube
While Whole Foods donates a lot of surplus food to food banks, there's a lot waste left over. Much of it is generated from prepping prepared foods. Just as when you cook in your own kitchen, there are lots of bits that remain, such as onion or carrot peel, rinds, stalks or meat scraps. The grinder turns all these bits into a slurry. "It really becomes kind of a liquefied food waste," Franczyk says.
From here, the waste is loaded into a truck and sent to an anaerobic digester. "There's no question it's better than putting it in the trash," Franczyk says. She says the chain is committed to diverting as much waste as possible and aims for zero waste. In addition to food donations, Whole Foods composts; this waste-to-energy system is yet another way to meet its goal. "We really do like the system," she says.
We visited Bar-Way Farm, Inc. in Deerfield, Mass. Owner Peter Melnik, a fourth-generation dairy farmer, showed us how his anaerobic digester, which is installed next to his dairy barn, works.
"We presently take in about a 100 tons [of waste], which is about three tractor-trailer loads, every day," Melnik says.
In addition to all the food waste from Whole Foods, he gets whey from a Cabot Creamery in the area, as well as waste from a local brewery and a juice plant.
In the digester on his farm, Melnik combines food waste from Whole Foods and other local sources with manure from his cows. The mixture cooks at about 105 degrees Fahrenheit. As the methane is released, it rises to the top of a large red tank with a black bubble-shaped dome.
Allison Aubrey/NPR
In the digester, he combines all of this waste with manure from his cows. The mixture cooks at about 105 degrees Fahrenheit. As the methane is released, it rises to the top of a large red tank with a black bubble-shaped dome.
"We capture the gas in that bubble. Then we suck it into a big motor," Melnik explains. Unlike other engines that run on diesel or gasoline, this engine runs on methane.
"This turns a big generator, which is creating one megawatt of electricity" continuously, Melnik says — enough to power more than just his farm. "We only use about 10 percent of what we make, and the rest is fed onto the [electricity] grid," Melnik explains. It's enough to power about 1,500 homes.
He says times are tough for dairy farmers, so this gives him a new stream of revenue. Vanguard pays him rental fees for having the anaerobic digester on his farm. In addition, he's able to use the liquids left over from the process as fertilizer on his fields.
A large motor (housed inside here) runs on the methane gas captured in the digester. This motor powers a generator, which creates electricity — enough to power about 1,500 homes.
Allison Aubrey/NPR
"The digester has been a home run for us," Melnik says. "It's made us more sustainable — environmentally [and] also economically."
Vanguard Renewables hopes to expand its operations in the state and elsewhere. "There's more than enough food waste in Massachusetts to feed all of our five digesters, plus many more," says CEO John Hanselman.
Massachusetts has a state law that prohibits the disposal of commercial organic waste — including food — by businesses and institutions that generate at least one ton of this waste per week. This has created an incentive for food businesses to participate in the waste-to-energy initiative.
Hanselman points to Europe, where there are thousands of digesters in operation. His hope is that the concept will spread here. "The food waste recycling through anaerobic digestion could be done in every part of the country," Hanselman says.
The company is currently building an anaerobic digester on a farm in Vermont. The gas produced there will be piped to Middlebury College, which will help the college reduce its carbon footprint.
Monday, January 27, 2020
USC Shoah Foundation
My uncle PETER LOESER from HOLLAND is in this collection and I am trying to find it.
Spielberg is Jewish and has spoken publicly about how he was bullied for his religion as a child, which is partially what led him to found the USC Shoah Foundation in 1994 to videotape and preserve interviews with Holocaust survivors and witnesses. The foundation has collected 115,000 hours of video testimony.
Pema
12 Life Tips from Buddhist Nun Pema Chödrön
Posted on September 19, 2017
The young Pema Chödrön
By Harish / 09.15.2017
Embrace Yourself as You Truly Are
One of my most cherished teachers is the gentle but tireless Buddhist nun, Pema Chödrön.
Over the years, I have enjoyed her wonderful books, her timeless wisdom and her gentle and loving approach to life.
Perhaps the most attractive thing about Pema is her insight into the human condition of suffering and the universality of love and compassion.
While it is impossible to distill Pema’s wisdom into one post, I am outlining some of her lessons, guidelines and wisdom.
1. The Preciousness of Every Moment
There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up and she looks down. She looks at the mouse. Then she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly. Tigers above, tigers below. This is actually the predicament that we are always in, in terms of our birth and death. Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.― Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape: How to Love Yourself and Your World
I love the story of the tigers and the strawberries and how it highlights that we tend to focus on the tigers of our lives a lot of the time, instead of savoring the strawberries.
We tend to focus on the tigers of our lives instead of savoring the strawberries.
Slow down.
Take a deep breath and take in the deliciousness of life.
Instead of hoping for the future and thinking about the past, look for the delight in the here and the now.
Move slowly and gently, taking it all in. Allow radical kindness and compassion for you and other sentient beings.
Reduce distractions and multitasking… focus on the task at hand and direct your attention to it.
The truth, as Pema so eloquently puts it, is that every moment of the present is a gift or a ‘present’ and we can choose to appreciate it and savor the preciousness of it.
When you redirect your perspective and focus to that simple but undeniable truth, the stories of lack, limitation and tigers might just fall apart.
Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet. ― Thích Nhất Hạnh
Every moment of the present is a gift and we can choose to appreciate it.
2. The Chaos Theory of Life
We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. ― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heartfelt Advice for Hard Times
Pema’s quote above says that this cycle of life–the chaos and order–are inevitable and always in the process of motion.
Likewise, the second law of thermodynamics in physics says that everything in the universe is moving towards chaos. Out of the chaos springs forth order, only to fall apart again.
At the outset, this may sound depressing, but if you go deeper and have the courage to embrace change, it is very liberating to know that things are continually transforming.
If you change your filter or perspective, this transformation will appear fascinating and inspiring instead of scary and depressing.
You may have gotten used to the idea of static comfort zones but eventually solidity, rigidity and non-transformation are more painful than the allowing of it.
Healing comes from allowing room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.
Being vulnerable to the various seasons of life is scary but flexibility leaves more room for change in contrast to inflexibility and solidity. After all, a flexible branch or plant can weather the storm where solid trees get uprooted.
What can we do? Pema’s advice is golden in these difficult moments of life. She says that we need to allow and provide room for sadness and joy to happen, without selectively shutting out one or the other.
Instead of struggling against everything, non-grasping and allowing are more gentle and kind approaches.
Leading researcher on shame and vulnerability, Brené Brown echoes the same sentiment and expresses it well:
Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light. ― Brené Brown
3. The Rinpoche in Disguise
Feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are. ― Pema Chödrön
Pema mentions that all the troubles and problems in your life are great teachers, or revered Rinpoches, in disguise.
All the troubles and problems of our life are great teachers in disguise.
I read this idea in one of her books a long time ago and I was immediately captured by the elegance and the power of this simple suggestion.
You might be avoiding the difficult emotions, situations and moments of your life, but it might benefit you greatly to ask instead: “What can I learn from this?”
I realized that the only reason these wonderful teachers in disguise were showing up in my life, over and over again, was that I had not yet internalized the message that I needed to learn.
I also admire Pema’s choice of words that difficult feelings are messengers that show you, in terrifying clarity, where it is that we are stuck. And if we choose to see them in a different light instead of shunning them, we become aware of a different way to look at them.
But it also involves casting aside the judging, criticizing and egocentric mind and allowing the timeless wisdom of these life lessons to internalize and sink in. The only way that is possible is if you make room for them, allow them, welcome them and look at them differently.
Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. ― Pema Chödrön
4. Becoming a Self-Advocate
The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves. ― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice For Difficult Times
You might be your own worst critic and the popular media and social conditions do not assist either because they impose unrealistic and perfectionistic expectations on people.
We usually end up becoming our harshest critic, with the false assumption that the harder we push ourselves, the better we will get and it will lead to a life of great abundance.
Become the greatest advocate of you and treat yourself with loving kindness.
But unfortunately, harshness and criticism replace compassion and self-love and transform into a habit that gets hard to shake off.
Instead, perhaps you should become the greatest advocate of you and treat yourself with the same amount of compassion and understanding that you afford others.
The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely. ― C.G. Jung
5. The Sky And The Weather
You are the sky. Everything else–it’s just the weather. ― Pema Chödrön
Pema teaches that at your deepest core, you are the unchanging brilliance of a crystal clear sky.
Everything else―situations, difficulties, emotions, feelings―are like the weather and come and go.
Do you associate yourself with the ever-changing weather or with the endless expansive sky? We forget that nothing lasts forever and jump headlong into the stories that we tell ourselves.
Another way is to understand the impermanence of the weather and not get carried away by it, choosing instead to become aware and dwell in the vast sky.
Be happy; without reason.― Tsoknyi Rinpoche
6. The Magic of Awakening
To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. ― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
The search to become and feel safe might just be keeping you in your comfort zone and that significantly diminishes your life experience.
You are the sky―everything else, it’s just the weather. ― Pema Chödrön
Pema advises that to experience unbridled aliveness and radiance and wakefulness, you need to trust the unknown and leave your safety nest behind.
Much like the paradox of the opposites, or Yin and Yang, our greatest aliveness might just be buried deep in the most insurmountable problems.
To strive for a greater cause, to challenge yourself, to have the heart and the stomach to step into the unknown, continually makes your life highly meaningful and vibrant.
7. On Seeking Resolution
As human beings, not only do we seek resolution, but we also feel that we deserve resolution. However, not only do we not deserve resolution, we suffer from resolution. We don’t deserve resolution; we deserve something better than that. We deserve our birthright, which is the middle way, an open state of mind that can relax with paradox and ambiguity. ― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
The judging mind is forever trying to label everything as right or wrong and seeks the resolution of everything in life. The need to compartmentalize everything neatly in its place leads to much suffering and lack of peace.
Pema suggests a better way, a middle ground instead of wanting to seek resolution when none is to be found. She suggests a state of mind that can find peace in spite of the uncertainty.
Instead of suffering due to wanting to resolve everything, we are better off accepting and allowing the paradox of uncertainty and deep ambiguity onto our lives.
Stepping into the unknown continually makes a life highly meaningful and vibrant.
8. The Way out of Fear
Once there was a young warrior. Her teacher told her that she had to do battle with fear. She didn’t want to do that. It seemed too aggressive; it was scary; it seemed unfriendly. But the teacher said she had to do it and gave her the instructions for the battle. The day arrived. The student warrior stood on one side, and fear stood on the other. The warrior was feeling very small, and fear was looking big and wrathful. They both had their weapons. The young warrior roused herself and went toward fear, prostrated three times, and asked, “May I have permission to go into battle with you?” Fear said, “Thank you for showing me so much respect that you ask permission.” Then the young warrior said, “How can I defeat you?” Fear replied, “My weapons are that I talk fast, and I get very close to your face. Then you get completely unnerved, and you do whatever I say. If you don’t do what I tell you, I have no power. You can listen to me, and you can have respect for me. You can even be convinced by me. But if you don’t do what I say, I have no power.” In that way, the student warrior learned how to defeat fear. ― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
Fear whispers into your ears all the time and whether you listen to it or not is your choice.
Many of us make the mistake of assuming the fearful stories and scenarios that we confront in our imaginations as true. What if you chose to befriend fear and instead of getting paralyzed by the stories, you decided to find out for yourself and do the thing you feared.
Fear is built on structures of assumptions, lack of action and lack of awareness. Once you move through the fog of fear and shine the light of awareness by taking action or moving forward, fear loses its power and efficacy.
Fear whispers into your ears and whether you listen to it or not is your choice.
9. The Subtle Art of Detachment
We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of colored glass. The castle is ours, off limits to others. We’re willing to attack if others threaten to hurt it. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea. ― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
One of the main things that prevent people from enjoying and living a fulfilled life is the excess attachment to things that are, by nature, impermanent.
Pema’s words of wisdom remind me of the poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley called Ozymandias. Shelley reminds us that even if we are great kings, we are still impermanent.
What really matters is what we are doing with the time that we are being offered. Do we choose to do the best that we can and enjoy every moment and live a life of worth and service, or do we stay attached and in fear?
Enjoy the sandcastle even though you know it is going to wash away.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay . Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare . The lone and level sands stretch far away. ― Percy Bysshe Shelley
10. The Real Meaning of Meditation
Meditation practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. ― Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape: How to Love Yourself and Your World
Many people do not quite get the real reason of meditation and sitting in silence. They think it is a means to make the self better or improve a defective person.
The real meaning and purpose of meditation is to allow all the assumptions, false beliefs and judgments that you have made about who you think you are to fall apart, and in doing so uncover your true nature.
This true nature is also called ‘buddha nature‘ and is accessible to everyone equally. It a state of complete friendliness, compassion and equanimity with who you really are.
When you approach meditation and life with the open curiosity and deep compassion of becoming friends with your deepest self instead of ‘fixing yourself,’ you see it in an entirely different light.
‘Buddha nature’ is a state of complete friendliness, compassion and equanimity.
I love the description of meditation from Sogyal Rinpoche:
Quietly sitting, body still, speech silent, mind at peace, let your thoughts and emotions, whatever arises, come and go, without clinging to anything.
And:
The gift of learning to meditate is the greatest gift you can give yourself in this life. For it is only through meditation that you can undertake the journey to discover your true nature, and so find the stability and confidence you will need to live, and die, well. Meditation is the road to enlightenment.
Gone is the hurried wanting and desire or the competition to look cool and fit into a mould. Instead, it is replaced with the sheer joy and happiness of ‘maitreyi’ or unconditional friendliness.
As the twelfth-century Tibetian yogi Milarepa said when he heard of his student Gampopa’s peak experiences, ‘They are neither good nor bad. Keep meditating.’ ― Pema Chödrön, The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times
11. The Unfettered Mind, The Beginners Mind
If your mind is expansive and unfettered, you will find yourself in a more accommodating world, a place that’s endlessly interesting and alive. That quality isn’t inherent in the place but in your state of mind. ― Pema Chödrön, Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change
The question that I like to ask myself is whether I am being closed and shut down or am I approaching life with flexibility and expansiveness.
Maintain a limber, flexible mind and don’t get tied to your opinions and judgments.
While the former is not bad and the latter good, rather, they are just different ways to experience the joys of being. Some ways take you closer to suffering and some take you into expansiveness, joy and aliveness.
When you maintain a limber, flexible mind and not get too tied up in your opinions and judgments, you are allowing the unfettered mind.
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few. ― Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginners Mind
12. Cultivating Fierce Compassion
Compassionate action starts with seeing yourself when you start to make yourself right and when you start to make yourself wrong. At that point you could just contemplate the fact that there is a larger alternative to either of those, a more tender, shaky kind of place where you could live. – Pema Chödrön
Just as the Persian Poet, Hafiz, says that there is a place between wrong doing and right doing and asks if you will meet him there, Pema also emphasized the importance of watching how we take sides.
Everything that you do and think is labeled as right and wrong, and if you even just begin to shine the light of awareness on that habitual thinking, you will realize that it may not always be so.
SNICKERS
Today the shrine to the lady killed in a traffic accident had THREE snickers bars placed on it.
Walking the Beat
Today I saw a driver ride towards the oncoming (one way) traffic to cut over to the gas station. I was walking my dog. I was astounded. I got the license plate and sent it to the police.
Electrical Current
What I’m looking for is a balance between a natural tone—intimate, conversational, as you say—and the maximum amount of tension, so that I can keep the reader engaged. Sentences need to have electrical current. There has to be both tautness and flexibility, speed and slowness, as in martial arts, which I have done a lot of. You have to simplify sentences as much as possible while making them take on more and more complex subject matter. I like what Hemingway says—Like everyone, I know some big words, but I try my damndest not to use them.
EMMANUEL CARRÈRE
Monday Morning Trash and Treasure
So I just found a round black foam container of eaten pork chops + rice HIGH UP in the bushes in front of the post office. I grabbed it before Romeo got it. Inside was a huge beautiful silver fork which I wrapped up in a clean bag and kept. I crossed the street to the dumpster and noticed a gorgeous beveled mirror ready to be thrown out. I nabbed it. I walked Romeo with my right hand carrying the heavy mirror on my left hip. At the bank my friend Sandy intercepted us and insisted she carry the mirror for me on her motorized wheelchair. "It's only 4 more blocks," I said.
"Let me help you," she insisted. She drove with it in her lap as I walked beside her all the way to my back door. I thanked her profusely.
"Anything I can do to help, makes me happy," she said. What a morning!!!
"Let me help you," she insisted. She drove with it in her lap as I walked beside her all the way to my back door. I thanked her profusely.
"Anything I can do to help, makes me happy," she said. What a morning!!!
Anise Pizzelle
I generally don't like or crave sweets but there's something magical about anise pizzelle.
Pizzelle della Nonna
https://www.shelovesbiscotti.com/pizzelle-della-nonna/
Have you ever wondered how to make pizzelle? Come and take a look. This crisp Italian cookie recipe requires no butter and is so much fun to make!
Keyword: ferratelle, Italian pizzelle, pizzelle recipe with oil, secret to perfect pizzelles
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
Servings: 36 servings
Calories: 45kcal
Author: Maria Vannelli RD
Ingredients
1¼ cups all-purpose flour 177 grams
¾ teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt
3 eggs room temperature
½ cup sugar 100 grams
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon anise extract optional
Instructions
Preheat pizzelle iron.
In a medium mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the eggs until frothy and beginning to thicken (about 3-4 minutes).
Add sugar. Continue to whisk until well thickened.
Add the oil and extracts. Mix well together.
Slowly add the flour mixture until well combined, dough will be soft and sticky.
Drop 1 tablespoon of batter on hot pizzelle press.
Close lid and cook 30 - 45 seconds or until slightly golden.
Remove from press with the help of a fork.
Transfer to flat surface or mold into desired shape.
Scroll UP for the STEP by STEP PhotosDon't miss the process shots and videos included in most posts. Simply scroll up the post to find them. Those were created especially for you so that you can make the recipe perfectly every single time you try it.
Video
Notes
Special Equipment needed to make this recipe is a pizzelle iron.
To make chocolate pizzelle use 1 cup all purpose flour sifted with 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I do not use the anise flavor-only vanilla).
Please keep in mind that the nutritional information provided below is just a rough estimate and variations can occur depending on the specific ingredients used.
Nutrition
Serving: 1serving | Calories: 45kcal | Carbohydrates: 6g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 13mg | Sodium: 5mg | Potassium: 18mg | Sugar: 2g | Vitamin A: 20IU | Calcium: 6mg | Iron: 0.3mg
12 Quarts of Chicken Soup
Last night I cooked a six pound chicken. I hadn't planned on it but there was a six pound chicken for 6 dollars on sale at the Stop and Shop down the street. So I pressure cooked the whole bird in my Instant pot. It was ready in 30 minutes. I saved the broth and crisped the top of the chicken under the broiler. We ate a little bit on toast for supper before bed. This morning I skimmed the fat off of the half gallon of chicken broth made from cooking the bird. Then I rinsed and chopped all of my kale, celery, potatoes, carrots, ginger, garlic, cilantro, in preparation for pressure cooking a vat of chicken soup. I separated the cooked chicken meat from the bones and added it to the cooked soup. Then I ladled it all into shallow containers to cool before freezing. I'm ready for a blizzard!
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Marni Rice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nywuJqY-sQ
Marni Rice performing at the Riverdale Spring Festival - May 18, 2013
Marni Rice, www.dejouxmusique.com, www.krvcdc.org
Yumna Jawad
Feel Good Foodie makes hummus pasta
Yumna Jawad shows us how to make her hummus pasta.
Author: Denise Pritchard
Published: 9:00 AM EDT May 17, 2019
Updated: 10:12 AM EDT May 17, 2019
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Not in the mood for tomato sauce? Tired of Alfredo? Not to worry, the Feel Good Foodie, Yumna Jawad, has a unique pasta recipe that will sure to impress.
The recipe is totally vegan, nut-free and can be a one pot/skillet dinner. Check out her recipe below:
Hummus Pasta
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion sliced
2 garlic cloves sliced
1 cup spinach
1 cup plain hummus
1 pound spaghetti pasta
Juice of 1 lemon + zest
¼ cup chopped fresh basil plus more for serving
Pinch of crushed red pepper
Instructions
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until al dente according to package directions. Reserve 1 cup of pasta cooking water, then drain the pasta and return to the pot to stay warm.
In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions and cook for 5-7 minutes or until fragrant and they soften. Add the garlic, and cook for 30 seconds, or until fragrant. Add the spinach and cook for 1 minute, or until is slightly wilts.
Add the hummus, about ½ cup of the pasta cooking water, the lemon juice and lemon zest, and stir until a creamy sauce forms. Add more pasta water to thin the sauce a little at time, as desired.
Transfer the cooked pasta to the skillet, turn off the heat and toss everything together. Top with basil and crushed red pepper.
Serve immediately with parmesan cheese or basil, if desired.
For more information, visit https://feelgoodfoodie.net/recipe/hummus-pasta/
Storytelling Festival
“Funda” is a Zulu and KiSwahili word meaning “to teach and learn.” The annual festival is put on by the Rhode Island Black Storytellers and celebrates the tradition of black storytelling through a range of cultural and educational events around the state.
Jan 30 6:30 PM YWCA WOONSOCKET RI
Citizen's Academy
Methods of patrols, use of force, drug investigations, crime scene investigations, DUI investigations, the K-9 unit and more.
Article
Article
Trio Documentary
0:30 / 57:29
Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris Trio Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ7StOs2xY0
1:19 / 57:29
Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris Trio Documentary
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•Jul 6, 2019
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Dolly, Linda and Emmylou's careers took off in the 1970s with very distinct takes on country music. Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris ended up uniting and eventually collaborated on 1987's four-million-selling debut album, Trio.
In the 60s, country music was viewed by most of America as blue collar and Dolly was country through and through. Linda Ronstadt's take on classic country helped make her the biggest female star in mid-70s USA.
Folk singer Emmylou learned about country from mentor Gram Parsons. After his death in 1973, she became a bandleader in her own right. It was Emmylou and Linda - the two west coast folk rockers - who voiced their mutual appreciation of Dolly, the mountain girl singer from Tennessee, when they became early students of her work. The artists talk about uniting as harmony singing sisters and eventually collaborating on their debut country album, Trio. The album helped launch the mountain music revival that would peak with the soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou.
In 2012 Linda Ronstadt was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease which left her unable to sing, but 2016 sees unreleased songs from their sessions to create a third Trio album. This is the story of how their alliance made them pioneers in bringing different music worlds together and raising the game for women in the country tradition.
Contributors:
Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Rodney Crowell, George Lucas, Peter Asher, Chris Hillman, Laura Cantrell, Robert K Oermann, John Boylan, Phil Kaufman, David Lindley, Albert Lee, Herb Pedersen, Allison Krause, George Massenberg & Applewood Road.
Songs heard in the complete, hour-long music biography include After The Gold Rush, Silver Threads and Golden Needles, Those Memories Of You, 9 To 5, Jolene, Coat of Many Colors, Bury Me Beneath The Willow, Wildflowers, Boulder To Birmingham, I've Got A Crush On You, So You Want To Be A Rock 'n' Roll Star, Blue Bayou, You're No Good, To Know Him Is To Love Him, I Fall To Pieces, Okie From Muskogee, and much more.
On Being
https://onbeing.org/programs/alison-gopnik-the-evolutionary-power-of-children-and-teenagers/#transcripthttps://onbeing.org/programs/alison-gopnik-the-evolutionary-power-of-children-and-teenagers/#transcript
Beats Antique
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI8yvTXNNeU
4:31 / 27:52
Beats Antique - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)
Francis de Sales
We cannot help conforming ourselves to what we love.
Francis de Sales
Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.
Francis de Sales
The whole world is not worth one soul.
Francis de Sales
Crown Act
CROWN Act (California)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The CROWN (Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair) Act (SB 188) is a California law which prohibits discrimination based on hair style and hair texture by extending protection for both categories under the FEHA and the California Education Code. It is the first legislation passed at the state level in the United States to prohibit such discrimination.
The CROWN Act, which was drafted and sponsored by State Senator Holly Mitchell, was passed unanimously in both chambers of the California Legislature by June 27, 2019, and was signed into law on July 3, 2019.[1]
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Søren Kierkegaard
Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.
- Søren Kierkegaard
It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.
- Søren Kierkegaard
Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all.
-Søren Kierkegaard
Once you label me you negate me.
-Søren Kierkegaard
Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.
-Søren Kierkegaard
The thing that cowardice fears most is decision.
-Søren Kierkegaard
Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.
-Søren Kierkegaard
Musical Storytellers
https://www.latinousa.org/episode/episode-2001/
Episode #2001: Ángela Aguilar And Two-Step Into 2020
By Digital Media Editor Jan 3, 2020
Friday, January 24, 2020
Abuse
This IMPEACHMENT trial reminds me of when I spoke up about abuse at the hands of my mother she began sending me false memory syndrome articles. I'm all riled up. My mother also said, "All those terrible things I did to you, I MADE YOU an ARTIST!" So she was at the same time admitting to her terrible things.
In the End...
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
- Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr.
Mona Eltahawy
https://lithub.com/mona-eltahawy-civility-will-not-overturn-the-patriarchy/
Mona Eltahawy
Mona Eltahawy is an award-winning New York-based journalist and commentator and an international lecturer on Arab and Muslim issues. She was born in Egypt and has lived in the UK, Saudi Arabia and Israel but is currently based in New York. She is a board member of the Progressive Muslim Union of North America. She has written Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution (2016) and The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls (2019).
Healthy
Healthy food can be convenient, too
Follow these tips:
Eat breakfast at home, or pack it up. It's ideal to avoid less-healthy takeout and prepared foods as much as possible.
Tamara de Lempika
The siren call of Tamara de Lempicka’s portrait of a cabaret singer
One of Lempicka’s best-known works is a self-portrait in leather helmet and gloves, the artist speeding along at the wheel of a Bugatti racing car, commissioned for the cover of the German fashion magazine Die Dame in 1929 (Portrait de Marjorie Ferry belonged to the fashion designer Wolfgang Joop between 1995 and 2009). Lempicka was a child of privilege who fled post-Revolutionary Russia for Paris, and who by dint of her own determination and talent financed an independent lifestyle that was as extravagantly stylish as it was notorious. She painted women who were liberated and confident in their sexuality. Alongside her two marriages she had numerous affairs with both women and men. It may have been one of her lovers, the nightclub singer and actress Suzy Solidor, who introduced Lempicka to the newly affianced Ferry (note the conspicuous whopper of an engagement ring on her finger).
https://www.apollo-magazine.com/tamara-de-lempicka-portrait-marjorie-ferry/
his own goodness
“If I had a friend and loved him because of the benefits which this brought me and because of getting my own way, then it would not be my friend that I loved but myself. I should love my friend on account of his own goodness and virtues and account of all that he is in himself. Only if I love my friend in this way do I love him properly.”
― Meister Eckhart
Laugh
“My Lord told me a joke. And seeing Him laugh has done more for me than any scripture I will ever read.”
― Meister Eckhart, Selected Writings
Ennoble
“One must not always think so much about what one should do, but rather what one should be. Our works do not ennoble us; but we must ennoble our works.”
― Meister Eckhart
Covering the Depths
“A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don't know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox's or bear's, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.”
― Meister Eckhart
Needing to be Born
“We are all meant to be mothers of God...for God is always needing to be born.”
― Meister Eckhart
Unique Moo's
Cows Communicate With Unique Moos
A new study has found that the animals use distinct vocalizations across a range of emotional contexts
cq5dam.web.1280.1280.jpeg
Researcher Alexandra Green, recording cows (Lynne Gardner/University of Sydney)
By Brigit Katz
smithsonianmag.com
January 14, 2020
Should you encounter a herd of cows munching on a field of grass, you might very well hear them emit some emphatic “moos.” It’s hard for humans to decipher these cow calls, but a new study shows that our bovine buddies communicate using unique voices, which remain consistent across a range of emotional circumstances.
The Price
“The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.”
― Meister Eckhart
As they See a Cow
“Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love a cow - for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort. They do not rightly love God, when they love Him for their own advantage. ”
― Meister Eckhart
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