The Horse

Horse, thou art truly a creature without equal, for thou fliest without wings and conquerest without sword.

~ The Koran

Long Live Ed Sullivan

Today is the birthday of television host and "Great Stone Face" Ed Sullivan, born Edward Vincent Sullivan to an Irish Catholic family in New York City (1901). In 1948, he was asked to host a Sunday-night variety show for the CBS network called "Toast of the Town." Sullivan's on-screen presence was savaged by critics as wooden and lacking personality. He was compared to the great stone statues of Easter Island, and one New York critic simply wrote after seeing the debut, "Why? Why? Why?" But the network stuck by him, and what Sullivan lacked in obvious star power, he made up for in his instincts with the public. He booked all the talent himself and made sure there was something for everyone, from vaudeville acts, to popular recording artists, to Topo Gigio, the little Italian mouse puppet. He had a self-deprecating sense of humor and would often encourage visiting comedians like Rich Little in their imitations of him.

In the 1950s, the program became "The Ed Sullivan Show," and he established a name for himself for breaking new talent, landing bands like "The Beatles" for their first live performance on U.S. television, which was then the most watched TV event of all time.

Sullivan also passionately fought back against pressures to avoid booking black talent, first exposing Sammy Davis Jr. and Ella Fitzgerald to a national TV audience. He was a big booster of the Motown label, hosting nearly every artist on their roster. The Supremes were a Sullivan Show favorite, appearing 17 times. When Nat King Cole appeared in 1954, Sullivan introduced him saying, "I've never met a finer performer or a finer human being." And in 1963, he supported Dylan's walking off his show when the network refused to let him perform his "Talking John Birch Society Blues," a song he himself had approved.

The Ed Sullivan Show ran for 23 years until it was canceled in 1971 for poor ratings, making it one of the longest-running shows in television history.
Sullivan said: "If you do a good job for others, you heal yourself at the same time, because a dose of joy is a spiritual cure. It transcends all barriers."

Present Moment, Wonderful Moment

I see that I have written a good deal about pain. This is no coincidence. It may be different for others, but pain is what it took to teach me to pay attention. In times of pain, when the future is too terrifying to contemplate and the past too painful to remember, I have learned to pay attention to right now. The precise moment I was in was always the only safe place for me. Each moment, taken alone, was always bearable. In the exact now, we are all, always, all right. Yesterday the marriage may have ended. Tomorrow the cat may die. The phone call from the lover, for all my waiting, may never come, but just at the moment, just now, that's all right. I am breathing in and out. Realizing this, I began to notice that each moment was not without its beauty.
- Julia Cameron

Go With the Flow

Like a drifting cloud
bound by nothing
I just let go,
giving myself up
to the whim of the wind.
Ryokan (1758-1831)

Life is Life

We are alive.  Be grateful for that.  I have 2 funerals to go to in one week.  June's and Helen's.  June was 84.  Helen, 61.  Tragic.  They were both my good friends.  Now, they're gone. 

I grieve.  For them.  For me.  For everyone.

Life is hard.  Shine the light on your JOY! 

Be grateful for all you have.

For it will all be over soon. 

As will you.

Einstein Quote

"Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for insects as well as for the stars. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper."

- Albert Einstein
interview, The Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929

Start Your Day Right

"How you start your day is how you live your day."
"How you live your day is how you live your life."
Food for thought!

-Louise Hay
Founder of Hay House Publications

What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life?

In the poem "Summer Day", Mary Oliver asks you:
"what is it you plan to do with your
one wild and precious life?"
What is your answer?

Love Springs Eternal

Those we love and lose are always connected by heartstrings into infinity. ~Terri Guillemets