Wordplay: Lemniscate, mandegreen, chanking & 25 other words for things that actually have names…
You’ll thing of these things, and it will give you a frisson.
What is frisson?
Read here, for it & 24 other things that actually have names in English.
Thoughts: Get outside & play. Get inside & play.
Poetry: So, I give you my life….Rumi
Someday our souls will be one and
our union will be forever.
I know that everything I give you comes back to me.
So I give you my life , hoping that you will come back to me.
Rumi
Music from space: Is Somebody Singing? Yep, The Barenaked Ladies & Chris Hadfield (with the Wexford Gleeks)
Monks love stuff like this.
The Barenaked Ladies & Chris Hadfield (with the Wexford Gleeks) sang a song about a year ago with Chris singing from the International Space Station, hooked up to the studio in Toronto.
Put them together and what do you get? The first space-to-earth musical collaboration. The song, “I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing) was commissioned by CBCMusic.ca and The Coalition for Music Education with the Canadian Space Agency to celebrate music education in schools across Canada.
Here’s the story (vid) of the planning…(not the one below, which is of the song!)
Whales: Heart joins BNL & Willie in boycotting SeaWorld…
It was in the news a week ago that The Bare Naked Ladies and Willie Nelson have cancelled scheduled shows at Sea World…now Ann & Nancy Wilson (of Heart) have dropped theirs, as well.
Here’s more.
Meanwhile, Joan Jett has told SeaWorld to quit playing her songs – here’s the story.
Starpeople: Former Joint Chiefs’ Chairman affirms extraterrestrials in Roswell ’47…
It’s hard getting stories straight in the first place, but after 67 years it’s even tougher.
Even so, there is a new account that the fellow who worked in the highest military post in the 1950s affirmed that extraterrestrial folk were involved in 1947 Roswell event. The General died in 1982, buried with full honors in Arlington, and his story didn’t pass with him – he told his son. Here’s more, in this account by Anthony Bragalia:
Six weeks before he passed, the four-star General who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Eisenhower (and who was the Commander of the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field in July of 1947) confessed to his namesake son that the Roswell crash was an extraterrestrial event.
Even more astonishingly, he disclosed that one of the aliens had survived.
General Nathan Twining was a West Point grad who was born into a family that was long-associated with the military. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he had risen to become the highest ranking military officer in the U.S. Armed Forces and principal military advisor to a President. Before retiring with over four decades of service, he was eligible to wear over 30 military medals.
Twining, concerned about the increasing rise in UFO reports during the summer of 1947, had advised the initiation of a formal study of the mysterious phenomenon. Known as Project Sign, this early official UFO study was authorized in December of 1947 by General Laurence Craige (Chief of Air Force R&D and implicated as Roswell-involved by Craige’s pilot, Ben Games.)
At the time of the Roswell incident Twining was at Wright Field (where the crash debris was flown) as Commander of the Air Materiel Command (AMC.) The AMC was charged with research, development, acquisition and flight testing of novel, prototype or foreign aircraft and weapons.
Here’s the rest of the story, including the transcript of the account.
Wordplay: The last word
So, you just got your new e-mail address & you’re setting up the thingie at the end of each note you send from now on in this lifetime. It’s called an e-mail signature, and it’s your chance to let the people you write know the real you. As you compose it, these tips from Dog House Diaries might be of use…..hope so.
Poetry: Happiness revealed, with Louie Schwartzberg
Nature’s beauty can be easily missed — but not through Louie Schwartzberg‘s lens. His stunning time-lapse photography, accompanied by powerful words from Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl-Rast, serves as a meditation on being grateful for every day. (Filmed at TEDxSF.)
Learn more about Louie and Moving Art at www.movingart.com.
Louie Schwartzberg is an award-winning cinematographer, director and producer who captures breathtaking images that celebrate life — revealing connections, universal rhythms, patterns and beauty.
Louie’s notable career spans feature films, television shows, commercials and documentaries. He won two Clio Awards for TV advertising, including best environmental broadcast spot, an Emmy nomination for best cinematography and the Heartland Film Festival’s Truly Moving Picture Award for the feature film “America’s Heart & Soul.” Schwartzberg founded Moving Art to use the power of media to inspire and entertain through television programming, DVD products, and full-length motion picture and IMAX films. His new film “Wings of Life” will be released by Disneynature.
Thoughts of peace: Police lay down their arms
Yesterday in Thailand, riot police yield to peaceful protesters by removing barricades AND their helmets in a shocking gesture of solidarity.
From the CBC report: “In a sharp reversal in strategy that followed two days of increasingly fierce street fighting, riot police lowered their shields and walked away from heavily fortified positions around Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s office at Government House.”
Here’s the whole CBC story.
Thoughts: The courage that gratitude requires….
One of the folks who hits it right on the head is also one of my favourite writers, Oriah Mountain Dreamer. She posted this little essay on the courage it takes to be grateful, at times….
It takes a certain kind of courage to allow gratitude to arise within our hearts. We know that in an impermanent world, all that we love will change, is impermanent. To let ourselves love & be loved anyway, to feel & express our gratitude for lives we know are unpredictable means holding our fears about loss tenderly without letting them stifle our enthusiasm for life.
Of course, what feels like shrinking or expanding differs from person to person- we are the only one who can know for sure if we are shrinking our lives to accommodate our fears or finding the courage to let life expand within & around us.
~Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Thoughts: Teach me
Earth, Teach Me
Earth teach me quiet ~ as the grasses are still with new light.
Earth teach me suffering ~ as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility ~ as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring ~ as mothers nurture their young.
Earth teach me courage ~ as the tree that stands alone.
Earth teach me limitation ~ as the ant that crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom ~ as the eagle that soars in the sky.
Earth teach me acceptance ~ as the leaves that die each fall.
Earth teach me renewal ~ as the seed that rises in the spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself ~ as melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness ~ as dry fields weep with rain.
– Ute Prayer
Funnier: Tradition: A great discovery.
Music: Day is done
Seems to me there are a couple of ways you can write a poem – take a photo that is memorable & beautiful & colourful & makes ya say, “Wow!”…or write a poem & set it to music, like Peter,Paul & Mary did in the song below, which has been part of my set over the years (I love it when everyone sings along!) Hope you had a great day – this is a beautiful way to end it!
About Brother Ian
Over the centuries, Brother Ian has been collecting stories & information & discourses for the purpose of elevating the human condition as needed, dissecting it when necessary, and building the case for hope.
In the spirit of noting that organized crime, organized baseball, organized labour, and organized religion tend to engender controversy & occasional discord, I promise to be neither organized or critical of those who are.