Yesterday Was Dancer's 3rd Birthday

Yesterday Dancer turned 3.  I went to the farm and drove him with Mark and Ingrid.  Simi came to help hitch him to the cart, and he was pretty antsy until I got in, took the reins and away we went.  I forgot to buckle one of the girth straps, and the saddle almost slid off---that's what happens when you're inexperienced.  (And kinda scared.)

But, we went round and round the driveway then out on the road, into the field and back again.  Dancer performed like the little champ he truly is, and everyone brought him carrots.  A good time was had by all.

Dancer Takes a Bow!

Ralph Waldo Emerson's Birthday

Today is the birthday of philosopher, poet, and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson (books by this author). He was born in Boston in 1803, and his father's unmarried sister, Mary Moody Emerson, was a great influence on him. She wasn't formally educated, but she was sharp, and she was widely read. She introduced young Waldo, as he was called, to a wide variety of philosophies and spiritual beliefs, including the Hindu scriptures that he would return to in later years, and it was from her that he got many of the aphorisms he passed on to his children, like "Always do what you are afraid to do," and "Despise trifles," and "Oh, blessed, blessed poverty." He entered Harvard at 14, and he began keeping journals, which he called his "savings bank"; when he became friends with Thoreau in 1837, he suggested that Thoreau, too, might benefit from keeping a journal.

In his book Nature (1836), Emerson first introduced the concept of Transcendentalism — the idea that spiritual truth could be gained by intuition rather than by established doctrine or text — and he would become a leader of that movement. He was a popular public speaker, and gave more than 1,500 speeches in his lifetime.

From the essay "The Over-Soul" (1841):

"The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only prophet of that which must be, is that great nature in which we rest, as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; that Unity, that Over-Soul, within which every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other; that common heart, of which all sincere conversation is the worship, to which all right action is submission; that overpowering reality which confutes our tricks and talents, and constrains every one to pass for what he is, and to speak from his character, and not from his tongue, and which evermore tends to pass into our thought and hand, and become wisdom, and virtue, and power, and beauty. We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul. Only by the vision of that Wisdom can the horoscope of the ages be read, and by falling back on our better thoughts, by yielding to the spirit of prophecy which is innate in every man, we can know what it saith."

Follow Your Dreams

Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success. Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream.

Lao Tzu

Ancient Chinese Philosopher

Dancer's First Day Driving the Carriage

On this day in 1845, Robert Browning met Elizabeth Barrett (books by this author) in person for the first time. Elizabeth was one of the most popular writers in England at the time, and Robert Browning wrote her a letter in praise of her work. Elizabeth, who was suffering from a “nervous disorder” and was confined to bed, wrote him back and thus began one of the most famous courtships-by-letter in all of history.

Elizabeth was six years older than Robert and in poor health, and she had trouble believing he really loved her. But his letters convinced her, and they continued their correspondence and eventually married. But their entire relationship was carried out in secret because Elizabeth’s father had forbidden all of his children to marry. When he found out that Elizabeth had married Robert, he disinherited her. But Elizabeth had some money of her own and the couple settled in Italy, where Elizabeth bore one son, Pen, at the age of 43.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s most famous work was written after she met Robert Browning and includes Sonnets from the Portuguese (1846), a collection of 44 love sonnets and Aurora Leigh (1856), an epic novel/poem. At first, she thought the poems were too personal to publish, but Robert proclaimed them the finest sonnets since Shakespeare’s. “Portuguese” was Robert’s nickname for Elizabeth.  She wrote, “I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.”

Like Elizabeth Barrett Browning, I dedicate this to my beloved pony, Dancer, who will be harnessed to his new carriage for the first time today by coachman, Holly Thompson:

Dancer, I love you not only for the darling pony you are, but for what I am when I am with you!"

My Beloved Charlie Chaplin

On this day in 1978, Charlie Chaplin’s corpse, which had been stolen and held for ransom, was recovered. The silent-film star had died the previous Christmas at the age of 88 and was buried in Vevey, Switzerland. But on March 2, 1978, robbers dug up his coffin.
The family was flooded with ransom demands. The police found most of them were implausible. Then one demand came in accompanied by authentic photos of Chaplin’s coffin. His wife, Oona, refused to pay money, saying that “Charlie would have thought it ridiculous.” But eventually she played along to help the investigation.

The police monitored 200 phone lines in Lausanne, Switzerland, where the Chaplins lived. Their wire taps turned up the two culprits, Roman Wardas, a Polish mechanic, and Gantscho Ganev, a Bulgarian mechanic, who admitted to the crime as a way to make money. They were convicted of extortion and disturbing the peace of the dead. Wardas, the mastermind, was sentenced to four and a half years of hard labor. Ganev, who served as the brawn, was given an 18-month suspended sentence.

The farmer who owned the land where the two robbers had temporarily buried Chaplin put up a cross in the burial spot. Chaplin’s body was returned to the gravesite and reburied under six feet of concrete to prevent any further burglaries. When Oona died years later, she also had her body put under six feet of concrete, just in case.

Prayer From St. Francis

~THE PRAYER OF ST. FRANCIS~

"Lord make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

Grant that I may not so much seek to be
consoled as to console; to be understood
as to understand; to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are
pardoned; and it is in dying
that we are born to eternal life."

~St. Francis of Assisi

Cats and Relaxation

 When cats are stroked, their heart rate decreases, and they become more calm (just like the person stroking them!)

Smiles

The Smile

by William Blake

There is a smile of love,
And there is a smile of deceit;
And there is a smile of smiles,
In which these two smiles meet.

(And there is a frown of hate,
And there is a frown of disdain;
And there is a frown of frowns
Which you strive to forget in vain,

For it sticks in the heart's deep core,
And it sticks in the deep backbone.)
And no smile that ever was smiled,
But only one smile alone—

That betwixt the cradle and grave
It only once smiled can be.
But when it once is smiled
There's an end to all misery.

"The Smile" by William Blake, from Selected Poetry. © Oxford University Press, 1996. Reprinted with permission

Peter Pan Lives (in all of us!)

It's the birthday of J.M. Barrie (books by this author), born James Matthew Barrie in Kirriemuir, Scotland (1860). He was a shy boy and a shy man. His contemporary Charles Lewis Hind wrote: "Barrie is a little man, shy-looking and dark, with black hair, a dome-like forehead, pale as ivory, and eyes that look as if they always want to escape from what he is doing. [...] He loves to spring surprises on rather a dense world. He is the child — a silent, inward-laughing, restless child, learning his lessons in his own way — who will never grow up. [...] The career of J.M. Barrie shows how useless schools of journalism or literature are to produce the real writing man or woman. What were Barrie's assets? An intense love for home, for the Scots folk with whom he grew up; for children; the power to express himself in straightforward, supple English — and, above all else, humor; something of Puck, something of Ariel, something of Charles Lamb and Tom Hood, mixed with Celtic wistfulness and wonder. Add to that sympathy, the observation of a cat watching a bird, with the power to use everything he sees and feels as material for his craft, and we begin to understand why the poor Scots boy has become Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Bt. Cr. 1913. I wager that all this is nothing to him. In his heart he is still Jamie of Kirriemuir, N.B., always making mental notes, hurrying over high tea (scones and jam) so that he may dip his pen in a penny ink bottle, and chuckle over the writing of an Auld Licht Idyll, and, mind you, being a Scot, always with his eye on the goal."
Once Barrie went to a dinner party with the poet and scholar A.E. Housman, whom he had wanted to meet for a long time, but he was so shy that he couldn't talk to him. He wrote him a letter afterward that said: "Dear Professor Houseman, I am sorry about last night, when I sat next to you and did not say a word. You must have thought I was a very rude man: I am really a very shy man. Sincerely yours, J.M. Barrie." Housman wrote back: "Dear Sir James Barrie, I am sorry about last night, when I sat next to you and did not say a word. You must have thought I was a very rude man: I am really a very shy man. Sincerely yours, A.E. Housman. P.S. And now you've made it worse for you have spelt my name wrong."
But Barrie was playful and outgoing when he was with children, and he loved to write for and about them — his masterpiece was Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up (1904). It's the story of Peter Pan, whose magical powers include his ability to fly and his perpetual youth; and the human children he befriends: Wendy, John, and Michael Darling.
In 1929, Britain's most famous children's hospital, the Great Ormond Street Hospital, asked J.M. Barrie to come do a series of lectures there. But he was too shy to speak in public. Instead, he offered to donate all the royalties from Peter Pan to the hospital. He died eight years later, and according to British law, copyrights last for 50 years after the artist's death. After those 50 years, the work enters the public domain and the royalties stop coming. For years, the Great Ormond Street Hospital received royalties not just from sales of the book, but from plays, merchandise, TV shows, and movies, including Hook (1991) and Finding Neverland (2004). In 1987, Peter Pan had been scheduled to enter public domain, but the British Parliament made a special case and extended the royalties so that the hospital could continue to thrive. Unfortunately, European Union law decrees that a copyright lasts 70 years after the death of the author, and they made no special allowances for Peter Pan. So in 2007, the Great Ormond Street Hospital lost its copyright in the European Union at large — but it still receives royalties from anything Peter Pan that happens in Britain.
J.M. Barrie wrote: "I'm not young enough to know everything."

Native American Prayer

Wakan Tanka, Great Mystery,
teach me how to trust my heart,
my mind,
my intuition,
my inner knowing,
the senses of my body,
the blessings of my spirit.
Teach me to trust these things
so that I may enter my sacred space
and love beyond my fear,
and thus walk in balance
with the passing of each glorious sun.

Native American Prayer

From the Lakota Indian People

Post May 3rd Birthdays - Including Mine!

Today (May 3rd) is my 60th birthday.  I'm in good company!


It’s the birthday of poet, novelist, and memoirist May Sarton (books by this author), born Eleanor Marie Sarton in Wondelgem, Belgium, in 1912. Her father was a science historian, and her mother was an artist, and the family moved to Boston, Massachusetts, when May was three years old. She received a scholarship to Vassar, but by this time she had fallen in love with the theater and her dream was to act and direct, so she declined the offer. While studying acting and voice, she wrote poetry, and a series of her sonnets was published in Poetry magazine in 1930, when she was 18 years old. By 1935, she had decided that writing, not acting, was her life’s work. She wrote more than 50 books: poetry, novels, memoirs, and journals. Her memoir Journal of a Solitude (1973) has been called “the watershed in women’s autobiography.”
In World of Light, a 1979 documentary about Sarton, she said, “I don’t write poems very often and when I do, they come in batches and they always seem to be connected to a woman, in my case, a muse who focuses the world for me and sometimes it’s a love affair and sometimes it’s not.” She wrote a novel, Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, in 1965, which is often referred to as her “coming out” novel. She worried, with good reason, that writing about homosexuality would pigeonhole or even dismiss her as a “lesbian writer,” and for many years to come, that’s exactly what happened.
By 1990, she was unable to write anymore as a result of a stroke, but she produced three journals and a volume of verse over the last five years of her life, by dictating them into a tape recorder.
“You choose to be a novelist,” she once said, “but you’re chosen to be a poet. This is a gift and it’s a tremendous responsibility. You have to be willing to give something terribly intimate and secret of yourself to the world and not care, because you have to believe that what you have to say is important enough.”

It’s also the birthday of William Inge (books by this author), born in 1913 in Independence, Kansas. He came to be known as the “Playwright of the Midwest,” and credits his keen understanding of human nature to growing up in a small town: “I’ve often wondered how people raised in our great cities ever develop any knowledge of humankind. People who grow up in small towns get to know each other so much more closely than they do in cities.”
While working as a drama critic for the St. Louis Star-Times, Inge met Tennessee Williams, who invited him to a production of The Glass Menagerie. Inge was inspired to write a play of his own, Farther Off from Heaven (1947), which Williams recommended for production. He wrote a string of hits — Come Back, Little Sheba (1950), Picnic (1952), Bus Stop (1955), and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1957) — all of which would later be turned into movies. He enjoyed less success and acclaim in the 1960s, however, with the sole exception being his screenplay for Splendor in the Grass (1961). He won an Oscar for it, but his five final plays were box office flops, and he killed himself in 1973, convinced he could no longer write.

The Tao of Touch

The tao of touch

by Marge Piercy

What magic does touch create
that we crave it so. That babies
do not thrive without it. That
the nurse who cuts tough nails
and sands calluses on the elderly
tells me sometimes men weep
as she rubs lotion on their feet.

Yet the touch of a stranger
the bumping or predatory thrust
in the subway is like a slap.
We long for the familiar, the open
palm of love, its tender fingers.
It is our hands that tamed cats
into pets, not our food.

The widow looks in the mirror
thinking, no one will ever touch
me again, never. Not hold me.
Not caress the softness of my
breasts, my inner thighs, the swell
of my belly. Do I still live
if no one knows my body?

We touch each other so many
ways, in curiosity, in anger,
to command attention, to soothe,
to quiet, to rouse, to cure.
Touch is our first language
and often, our last as the breath
ebbs and a hand closes our eyes.

"The tao of touch" by Marge Piercy, from The Hunger Moon: New & Selected Poems, 1980-2010. © Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. Reprinted with permission