i thank you god--and e.e. cummings

Cummings is my favorite poet, just ahead of Edna St. Vincent Millay. I once had a student whose learning difference prevented her from understanding the use of punctuation. When she discovered e.e. cummings, she spent a week communing with him through his work and came out the other side with a smile, a fantastic research paper, and a little more self confidence. I am so grateful I got to watch that, and so grateful I got to know her.

i thank you god for most this amazing

i thank You God for most this amazing day
for the leaping greenly spirits of treesand a blue true dream of sky
and for everythingwhich is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,and this is the sun's birthday
this is the birthday of life and of love and wings
and of the gaygreat happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any
--lifted from the noof allnothing--
human merely being doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Compassion and Justice: mutually exclusive?

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
Anatole France (1844 - 1924), The Red Lily, 1894, chapter 7

Chilling

A friend who hunts lions decided to shoot this one with a camera instead. This was a challenge to recreate because of the unusual position and because the only canvas I had available was very large. The painting is 48" X 60". Thanks to John Mosher for allowing me to use the photo.

In the end, our society will be defined not only by what we create but by what we refuse to destroy.
John C. Sawhill

Cranes

Driving along the Jocko River Road high in the sacred Mission Mountains, we rounded a curve and startled a large flock of cranes milling in the road. Tall and stately, they turned to look at us. Then one by one they trotted to the edge of the cliff, dropped off, spread their wings, and lifted away.

Craftsmanship and paying the bills

"If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside." Robert X. Cringely, InfoWorld magazine

Wanna be an artist when you grow up? Can you balance productivity, sales, and professional development? You can spend a lot of hours trying to sell your art, at the expense of production. You can spend your time and energy producing, but if you aren't growing, you're just churning out copies in the world's least efficient version of an assembly line. Every work is a new exploration. You got the eye, the coordination, the vision---you have to honor it.

Art is now being widely produced by computers, monkeys, elephants, and artists who just keep producing the same old thing because it's what sells and they have to keep up their rent or validate their hours in the studio. The world doesn't give much of a nod to integrating personal growth and one's profession, or to craftsmanship.

Today, may I work without regard to time or money, and may I see the value in a dose of forced asceticism . . .

A fine morning prayer

"i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
-i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april
my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness
around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains
i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
-i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing
winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)"

e.e. cummings

Words of Wisdom from Dr. Seuss

"If you never have, you should! These things are fun, and fun is good!"