Thank you Beth.
Sunday Morning
August 23, 2020 by 8 Comments
I asked him what he thought it meant for our lives, for how we spend them, for what they mean. He said our lives mean nothing except as a cycle of regeneration, that we are incomprehensibly brief sparks, just as the animals are, that we are no more important than they are, no more worthy of life than any living creature. That in our self-importance, in our search for meaning, we have forgotten how to share the planet that gave us life. Tonight I write him a letter telling him I think he was right. But that also I think there is meaning, and it lives in nurturing, in making life sweeter for ourselves, and for those around us.
— Charlotte McConaghy, Migrations: A Novel (Flatiron Books, August 4, 2020)
Photo: Sparks by Christine Lynch
Where you at?
March 12, 2020 by 38 Comments
Where You At?
Trace the water you drink from precipitation to tap.
How many days till the moon is full?…
From what direction do winter storms generally come in your region?
Name five grasses in your area.
Name five resident and five migratory birds…
Were the stars out last night?
From where you are reading this, point north.
~ Jenny Offill, Weather: A Novel (Knopf, February 11, 2020)
Notes:
- Inspired by: “As it is, we are merely bolting our lives—gulping down undigested experiences as fast as we can stuff them in—because awareness of our own existence is so superficial and so narrow that nothing seems to use more simple than simple being. If I ask you what you did, saw, heard, smelled, touched, and tasted yesterday, I am likely to get nothing more than the thin, sketchy outline of the few things that you noticed, and of those only what you thought worth remembering. Is it surprising that an existence so experienced seems so empty and bare that its hunger for an infinite future is insatiable?” ~ Alan Watts, The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (Published August 28th 1989 by Vintage, first published 1966) (via noosphe.re)
- Illustration by Ariduka55 (via Your Eyes Blaze Out)
Sunday Morning
October 27, 2019 by 19 Comments
Recognizing the dignity of each living thing, mobile or fixed, insect, animal, tree, or mushroom, has broadened my love for this world and diminished my need for a god in heaven. We have multitudes of gods on Earth.
~ Terry Tempest Williams, Erosion: Essays of Undoing (Sarah Crichton Books, October 8, 2019)
Sunday Morning
August 25, 2019 by 25 Comments
I, said a prayer for the deer, as we always do when dispensing with wildlife, like the pileated woodpecker that flew straight into one of the windows on the side of the house and then collapsed dead on the windshield of our car. My God, was that upsetting…
Laurel, for all of her sometimes hard-boiled feelings about the foibles of human beings, had boundless feelings of responsibility for animals, the more innocent, the more boundless the feeling. She regularly escorted bugs out of the house, even the ladybugs that had a tendency to blight the place in fall and spring. She resisted even my vacuuming and releasing when there were dozens of them. Spiders were escorted out. And she had a very practical method for removing bees and wasps that involved an overturned glass and an index card.
~ Rick Moody, The Long Accomplishment: A Memoir of Hope and Struggle in Matrimony (August 6, 2019)
Photo of the artist Laurel Nakadate by Sabine Mirlesse via artspace.com
Can’t read. Can’t watch. Can’t bear it.
August 31, 2017 by 46 Comments
8:30 p.m. Wednesday evening. I’m in Texas on assignment, Dallas thankfully. The planned evening workout at the gym has been canceled without much fuss. I’ll need to carry the fuel of three consecutive days of nutritious Chick-fil-A, home fries and Kit Kat bars into a fourth day. You’d say, not possible to eat Chick-fil-A, home fries and Kit Kat bars three days in a row, and I would tell you not to bet against me.
I’m fully reclined on the bed leaning against the headboard.
A long day.
The MacBook warms my lap. The TV remote control rests on my right.
I start with the day’s RSS feeds, rifling through the posts. And stop.
The Headline shouted: Fishermen jailed, fined millions for massive shark massacre off Galapagos Islands. The Ecuadorean navy made a shocking discovery earlier this month when, at the request of Galapagos National Park officials, it investigated a Chinese-flagged vessel cruising through the marine reserve off the Galapagos Islands. They found more than 6,600 illegally caught sharks lying in piles onboard the vessel known as the Fu Yuan Yu Leng 999.”
The Galapagos Islands. A protected area. 6,600 illegally caught sharks. Wow.
I set the laptop down and grab the remote.
CNN: Houston. Hurricane Harvey. Levees topped out. Mothers’ clutching babies. The aged being hauled out of Nursing homes. Flood waters rising.
Click.
FOX: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and missles over Japan.
Click.
MSNBC: Trump and Russia.
Click.
BRAVO: The World Wildlife Fund commercial. 60 seconds, and I can’t avert my eyes.
I turn the TV off.
I twist in my ear buds, grab my iPhone and turn to Apple’s Coffeehouse playlist. The first tune on the list is Glen Campbell’s (RIP 8/7/17) Gentle on My Mind:
I still might run in silence
Tears of joy might stain my face
And the summer sun might burn me till I’m blind
But not to where I cannot see
You walkin’ on the back roads
By the rivers flowin’ gentle on my mind
Lights out…
~ DK
Riding Metro North. With SkinnyPop.
March 4, 2017 by 41 Comments
Michael posted it. I chew on it.
“The older I grow, the more I listen to people who don’t talk much.” Germain G. Glidden.
Like a needle stuck in a rut, it churns.
The older I grow…The older I grow…The older I grow.
It’s Monday, an unexpected break, with two cancellations. I mosey cross-town to catch an early afternoon train.
The hallways in Grand Central, teeming in rush hour, stand empty, resting. The board flashes Track 106, departing in 30 minutes. 30 minutes. 30 minutes. 30 minutes.
The stomach growls. I circle the snack bar. Once. And then twice. And then back again. Snickers Bars. Doritos. Mixed Nuts. M&Ms. Papers. Magazines. Sodas chilling. An oversize bag of Jalapeno SkinnyPop. Bingo. I grab the bag and a Kit-Kat Bar. The tattooed counter man lifts his head from the NY Post, “Bag for this?”
I step into the last car, it’s dimly lit. [Read more…]
Monday Morning Wake-Up Call
September 26, 2016 by 10 Comments
Source: Paddington the Dog and Butler the Cat. BFF. Photos by ©Annie & Paddington (from Australia) (via Cats, Beavers & Ducks)
Running. With a Mystical Moment.
September 4, 2016 by 36 Comments
The eyes pan the green carpet of the unmarked plots at the Spring Grove Cemetery. Geese feed silently, showing their respect. The Police station is to my left. The Public Library in front. And there’s four miles of track ahead.
I slow my pace.
The eyes are drawn to the flock of Canada Geese. It’s a large flock, fifty or so.
The eyes spot a difference. I’m awed at how the eyes can hone in so quickly on “what’s off.” I begin to hum the Sesame Street jingle: “One of these things (is Not like the others).” (Your mind works in mysterious ways, friend. Wow.)
She’s limping, badly. Her children, late season goslings, furry now, trail behind her. Their necks are all down, pecking at seeds, the grass.
It’s been a week now and the image remains fresh.
Was it a car that hit her? Or was it a scar from fleeing from the clutches of a predator? A hunter’s bullet grazing her webbed foot? Or was she simply born lame? There’s no emergency room for repair. No splint or cast to heal. No morphine to cut the edge. She limps. She lives. She protects her family.
And it’s Sunday. And your morning sermon doesn’t come from the inside of a Church, or from a person of Cloth, but from a Book. This Agnostic is deep into his readings of Thomas Moore and his teachings of creating a personal religion. It’s as if he opened this chapter speaking to me: [Read more…]
T.G.I.F.: It’s Been A Long Week!
May 13, 2016 by 9 Comments
38° F. It’s still cold out there.
March 9, 2016 by 12 Comments
“Young, orphaned elephants are bundled up against the cold before going to bed at night at an animal rescue center in Kaziranga, in India’s Assam state.”
Source: wsj.com by Roger Allen/I-Mages/Zuma Press)
Rescue Us
October 13, 2015 by 20 Comments
“I’d like people to start to look at animals as individuals,” she said. “If everyone did a bit more, if they fell in love a little bit more, so much could happen. It doesn’t have to be going vegan. You can advocate for them. You can show tenderness. You can play music for them. I really hope people can connect with animals the way most of us did as children.”
That’s the thing about animals we grow close to, Ms. Stewart added: “We talk about taking in ‘rescue animals.’ But the truth is, just as often, animals rescue us.”
~ Judith Newman, Tracey Stewart’s Animal Planet
Tracey Stewart is the editor-in-chief of the website Moomah, which provides parents and kids with fun, easy, and effective ways to contribute to varying kinds of nonprofits. A passionate animal advocate and expert (she’s a former veterinary technician), she lives on a farm in New Jersey with her husband, Jon Stewart; two kids; four dogs; two pigs; one hamster; three rabbits; two guinea pigs; one parrot; and two fish—all rescues except for the kids.
Don’t miss Judith Newman’s background story on Tracey Stewart: Tracey Stewart’s Animal Planet
Tracey Stewart’s book will be released on Amazon on October 20, 2015: Do Unto Animals
A dog’s love
April 5, 2015 by 19 Comments
“Heartbreaking photos show grieving Bird and stray dogs attend funeral of woman who fed them.
These heartbreaking photos prove that a dog’s love knows no bounds as a collection of stray pooches pay tribute at the funeral of a woman who showed them kindness. Lying in the floors and trotting through the aisles, the dogs congregated at the funeral of Margarita Suarez – much to the surprise of the woman’s friends and family. Margarita, from Merida in Mexico, frequently took time out of her day to care for stray dogs and cats by giving them food in the morning. She would also take a bag of food out with her during the day, and treat other stray dogs she passed to a tasty treat. Dogs from all around the area would huddle around the caring woman when she passed them by, but they were evidently left heartbroken after Margarita passed away.
According to Misiones Online, the caring woman, who’s age has not been revealed, died after her health took a poor turn at the beginning of March. The family then began organising the funeral but were stunned when animals began arriving at the parlour where her mother’s body was being kept. Workers at the funeral home denied any knowledge of the animals and said they had never seen them before.
Amazingly, on the day of the funeral, a large number of stray dogs slowly followed the hearse carrying Margarita and even returned to the funeral home. They only left when the body was being prepared for cremation, but not before the family had one final treat. A bird, that was not thought to be native to the area, flew into the service and tweeted away contently. Margarita’s family have told how they believe the animals had an instinct that they wanted to be there to say goodbye to someone who had been so good to them.”
T.G.I.F.: It’s been a long week
March 13, 2015 by 15 Comments
Barcelona based photographer Yago Partal pairs animal heads with human bodies to reveal their inner beast through their clothes. Don’t miss other Zoo Portraits in the series at mymodernmet.com.
Sunday Morning: Be Together. Not The Same.
February 8, 2015 by 20 Comments
Must see…
Thank you Susan.
T.G.I.F.: It’s been a long week!
January 30, 2015 by 12 Comments
Little Beast!
Notes:
- See more pictures and background on Arctic Foxes at Nat Geo: Arctic Fox
- Image Source: Themetapicture. Thanks Susan.
Monday Morning Wake-Up Call
July 21, 2014 by 17 Comments
We are finite, separate and neurotic. We strive and go crazy to become more important.
June 17, 2014 by 46 Comments
“We tend to think animals are lower than us, but all the scientists in the world couldn’t design and operate a bumblebee’s wing. We can’t jump or run very fast, and we can’t carry vast weights like an ant can. We can’t see in the dark and we can’t fly except crammed in a noisy tube like sardines, which doesn’t count. Humans compared to animals are almost totally deaf, and we can’t smell a fart in an elevator by their standards. We are finite and separate, and neurotic, while the consciousness of an animal is at peace and eternal. We strive and go crazy to become more important. Animals rest and sleep and enjoy the company of each other. We think we have evolved upwards from animals but we have lost almost all of their qualities and abilities. The idea that animals don’t have consciousness or that they don’t have a soul is rather crass. It shows a lack of consciousness. They talk, they have families, they feel things, they act individually or together to solve problems, they often care of their young as a tribal unit. They play, they travel, and medicate themselves when they get sick. They cry when others in the herd die, they know about us humans. Of course they have a soul, a very pristine one. We humans are only now attempting with the recent rise in consciousness to achieve the soul that animals have naturally.”
– Stuart Wilde
Credits: Photograph – Themetapicture. Poem/Quote: Sensual Starfish
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