Notes:
- Photo: Esprit Libre (Thank you Carrie!)
- Background on Caleb/Wednesday/Hump Day Posts and Geico’s original commercial: Let’s Hit it Again
Tag: Inspirational
Imagine an infant lying in its cradle, discovering its voice, purring and murmuring MMM to itself
Bernstein reminded me that the word “education” is related to the Latin educere—“ to bring forth what is within”— and then added: “Though I can’t prove it, deep in my heart I know that every person is born with the love of learning. Without exception. Every infant studies its toes and fingers, and a child’s discovery of his or her voice must be one of the most extraordinary of life’s moments. I’ve suggested that there must be proto-syllables existing at the beginnings of all languages— like ma (or some variant of it), which, in almost every tongue, means mother— mater, madre, mère, mutter, mat, Ima, shi-ma, mama. Imagine an infant lying in its cradle, discovering its voice, purring and murmuring MMM to itself… […]
Whether teaching children or adults, Bernstein understood that loving and learning are inextricably linked, that real knowledge is a concomitant of the desire to know, and that music itself— a meeting of living creator and creative listener— is one of the most efficacious vehicles for teaching. As a conductor, Bernstein experienced the relationship between himself and his orchestra as that of a lover and his beloved. As he remarked at the conclusion of his 1955 Omnibus television broadcast “The Art of Conducting”:
“The conductor must not only make his orchestra play; he must make them want to play…. It is not so much imposing his will on them like a dictator; it is more like projecting his feelings around him so that they reach the last man in the second violin section. And when this happens— when one hundred men share his feelings, exactly, simultaneously, responding as one to each rise and fall of the music, to each point of arrival and departure, to each little inner pulse— then there is a human identity of feeling that has no equal elsewhere. It is the closest thing I know to love itself.”
~ Jonathan Cott, Dinner with Lenny: The Last Long Interview with Leonard Bernstein
Notes: Original Source – Brainpickings
Monday Morning
With deep breaths
and an open heart,
I begin again.
~Riyam Alw, soul-metamorphosis
Source: Photo by Ilka Kramer (°seestück01-Variante°) via Mennyfox55
Running. With Crystal Light.
Whether you snort white powder, or you shovel crystals down your gullet, the consequences are…
June-ish, 2016. It was the last leg of the morning commute, on I-287. The heart starts to race, this followed by a pinch, with its roots pushing outward like the tail of a lightning strike.
Doctor’s diagnosis: High Cholesterol. Root cause? Diet, with any 3 or 4 of following occurring on any given day:
- Yogurt. Fruit on the Bottom. Jacked up with two heaping tablespoons of Smucker’s Strawberry Jam.
- Fruit. Sliced bananas. Floating in Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup. Sliced strawberries, same. Blueberries, melon, raspberries, same.
- Hotcakes. With Canadian Maple Syrup, and a dollop of Raspberry jam.
- Drinks. Orange Gatorade. Florida Orange Juice from the carton. Artificially sweetened Lipton’s Green Tea, 2 bottles at a time. Diet Coke(s). Cranberry Juice, swigged from a 1 gallon jug. And oh let’s not forget, Welch’s Grape Juice, one could bathe in it.
- Ice Cream. Pint of creamy Chocolate Haggen Daz in a single sitting. Breyer’s Vanilla Ice Cream, topped with chopped nuts, chocolate sauce and several shots of Reddi Wip Cream.
- Coffee. Spiked with 2.0 (yes, two) packets of Nutrasweet or its brethren.
- Hot Tea. Golden Bee Honey from a squeeze bottle swirls to and coats the bottom.
- Snacks. Semi-sweet chocolate chips (in pantry for cooking) by the handful. Entenmann’s glazed donuts. Mini Snicker Bars by the handfuls.
- Sandwich. PBJ, mostly with J, oozing on all sides of enriched and wholesome white bread.
- Cereal. Including Raisin Bran, supplemented with a handful of California golden raisins and hopped up with a heaping teaspoon of white sugar crystals sweetening the 2%.
And the pre-bed-time sedative…which warrants its own paragraph, not a mere bullet. Grape Jelly trembles as it waits for the tablespoon to dig deep and scar its surface. Jelly coats the teeth and slides smoothly down the throat. A trace lingers on the lips. The body settles in, calm now, with its fix. Bed time. Continue reading “Running. With Crystal Light.”
Saturday Morning
…
Let the eye enlarge
with all it beholds.
I want to celebrate color,
how one red leaf flickers
like a match held to a dry branch,
and the whole world goes up
in orange and gold.
~ Linda Pastan, from “Autumn” in Carnival Evening, New & Selected Poems 1968-1998
Notes: Poem Source: Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels. Photo: via The Sensual Starfish