Good Oak

"There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a cabin. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace. To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden. To avoid the second, one should lay a split of good oak on the andirons, and let it warm one's shins while a February blizzard tosses the trees outside. If one has cut, split, hauled, and piled one's own good oak, and let one's mind work the while, one will remember much about where the heat comes from, and with a wealth of detail denied to those who spend the week in town astride a radiator."

-Aldo Loepold, naturalist and author of A Sand County Almanac

"Sometimes, sit and think. Sometimes, just sit."

(taken at the sculpture garden in minneapolis)

Lydia Mendoza: "The Lark of the Border"

I'm listening to the "First Lady of Tejano" here at NPR.

Disfrutate!

The developmental stages of marriage concepts: magical, idealized conventional, individualistic, affirmational

I just came across this study.

"Abstract: This study involved the construction of a theory and scoring manual for assessing the developmental stages of individuals' concepts of marriage. Four stages (Magical, Idealized Conventional, Individualistic, Affirmational) were identified. The reliability of the scoring procedure (interrater and item-total protocol) was judged to be acceptable. Correlations with age, schooling, ego development, and years of marriage support the marriage concepts stage sequence. Adolescents (N=162) scored at the first two stages of marriage concepts. However, in ego development, their mean score was above the Conformist level, thus suggesting that the adolescents were more advanced in their overall personality development than in their developmental stages of marriage concepts."

Roy T. Tamashiro¹
Received: 24 April 1979 by College of Education, Ohio State

Laying fallow on Sunday mornings.

Happy Moms.

The Bright New Year, a song by Bert Jansch

Keep a poem in your pocket.

The New Yorker reports that April 29th was A Poem in Your Pocket Day in New York City. Here's what I chose to put in my pocket:

"In the woods is perpetual youth."

My oh my.

Tulip-magnificence.

(Holland)

The Rose Garden

one day in summer
when everything
has already been more than enough
the wild beds start
exploding open along the berm
of the sea; day after day
you sit near them; day after day
the honey keeps on coming
in the red cups and the bees
like amber drops roll
in the petals; there is no end
believe me! to the inventions of summer,
to the happiness your body
is willing to bear.

-mary oliver, the roses

tidepooling

low tide at deception pass, spotted a purple sea star: "five broad rays are stiff and bumpy, patterned with lines of very short white spines...common on rocky beaches under overhanging rocks...feeds by humping over prey and forcing shells apart then inserts its extrudable belly to dissolve and devour the inner parts" (yate's marine wildlife).

Insect covered in morning dew

see more here.

Martin Buber

I've been ruminating on the arousing and personally-inspiring "I-It, I-You" Theory of philosopher Martin Buber:

"In I and Thou, Buber...worked upon the premise of existence as encounter. He explained this philosophy using the word pairs of Ich-Du and Ich-Es to categorize the modes of consciousness, interaction, and being through which an individual engages with other individuals, inanimate objects, and all reality in general...The generic motif Buber employs to describe the dual modes of being is one of dialogue (Ich-Du) and monologue (Ich-Es)...Buber argued that human life consists of an oscillation between Ich-Du and Ich-Es.

Ich-Du

Ich-Du ("I-Thou" or "I-You") is a relationship that stresses the mutual, holistic existence of two beings. It is a concrete encounter, because these beings meet one another in their authentic existence, without any qualification or objectification of one another. Even ideas do not play a role in this relation...Buber stressed that an Ich-Du relationship lacks any structure and communicates no information. Despite the fact that Ich-Du cannot be proven to happen as an event (e.g. it cannot be measured), Buber stressed that it is real and perceivable. A variety of examples are used to illustrate Ich-Du relationships in daily life - two lovers, an observer and a cat, the author and a tree, and two strangers on a train. One key Ich-Du relationship Buber identified was that which can exist between a human being and God. Buber argued that this is the only way in which it is possible to interact with God, and that an Ich-Du relationship with anything or anyone connects in some way with the eternal relation to God.

Ich-Es

The Ich-Es ("I-It") relationship is nearly the opposite of Ich-Du. Whereas in Ich-Du the two beings encounter one another, in an Ich-Es relationship... the "I" confronts and qualifies an idea, or conceptualization, of the being in its presence and treats that being as an object. All such objects are considered merely mental representations, created and sustained by the individual mind...Therefore, the Ich-Es relationship is in fact a relationship with oneself; it is not a dialogue, but a monologue. In the Ich-Es relationship, an individual treats other things, people, etc., as objects to be used and experienced. Essentially, this form of objectivity relates to the world in terms of the self - how an object can serve the individual’s interest." - Wikipedia

An another note, Wikipedia is improving my quality of life. Since reading Buber's wiki article two weeks ago, I've carried the Ich-Du in my heart. It's relaxing.

Lessons from Loved Ones

Pat is fearless with his physical form. I want to be, too! The world belongs to the brave.

<3 Happy Patty's Day, Pat <3

Happy Paddy's Day, Pet!

This year St. Paddy's Day was especially important to me -- I have a new and much-loved Irish brother, my boyfriend's name is Pat, and I'm visiting the homeland this summer.

Tea Time We baked scones (a UK/Irish thing, recipe here) and served it with Irish Breakfast Tea. Scones are notoriously difficult to cook but they turned out tasty, especially with lots of Kerrygold Irish Butter and Orange Marmalade (Pat's preference) or Nutella, which I tried for the first time in Ireland many years ago.















Biking to a garden Where better to visit than a green, green place. This rose garden is less than eight blocks from our house.




































See Pat reading in the lower left.























Dinner with meat and potatoes




Music

• Pandora station: Tommy Makem & Liam Clancy - It's good craic.
  

Movie

• The Secret of Kells: small budget animated film made in Ireland about the Book of Kells

"i have lived through many ages/ ran with salmon, deer, and wolf./ i have seen the northmen invading ireland/ destroy all in search of gold./ i have seen suffering in the darkness/ yet i have seen beauty thrive in the most fragile places."

The Still Face Experiment

Perhaps the most remarkable video I've seen all week

"How Not to Read Imaginative Literature"

I fear this might be a contradiction.





From How to Read a Book by Adler and Van Doren

"The Importance of Suspending Judgment"

I really like this one.







From How to Read a Book by Adler and Van Doren

Google maps has bike routes!!!

!!!!!

with distances and estimated time and everything

!!!!!

best comment ever

lighthouse comics got its first ever comment from a stranger:






the commenter is an italian blogger. i've finally found my audience.

Altruistic Bonobos

here.

can't say i'm surprised.