Dona Nobis Pacem

It's World Peace Day.




Here the ever talented Capital Children's Choir cover Lily Allen's song "Chinese," written for her Madre.

Visualize setting down your arms today (whatever form they take), and pick up the dog's leash, or a nice cup of tea.

Until You've Loved the Pilgrim in You

There’s a road that runs straight through your heart
Walk on it.



Macrina Wiederkehr,
from poem, Tourist or Pilgrim

SS: Ever Present. Everywhere.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Doing Brave Acts*

Moral virtues come from habits. They are not in us neither by nature, nor in despite of nature, but we are furnished by nature with a capacity for receiving them, and we develop them through habit. These virtues we acquire first by exercising them, as in the case of other arts. Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it: men come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players by playing the harp. In the same way by doing just acts we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; and by doing brave acts, we come to be brave.

--Aristotle, posted here

*Brave acts are personally determined by considering what frightens you, which could be small rodents, very fast moving spiders, public speaking, saying no, saying yes, or eating deli meat which is two days past the Best By date.

*this particular Idiot's Guide book has not yet been written, although there is one on Vampires, and also one on the year 2012, but none yet on the year 2016. So if you want to write the Complete Idiot's Guide to Bravery, or Self-Controlled Acts, or Being Just, or the year 2016, get going

*there also isn't one about harps

Raw Materials

Some mornings feel like you've reached into the bag of Scrabble letters and pulled out 7 Q's.

Best letter to get that also means you better call to mind a word where Q doesn't need a U, or search the board for a U and an opening, or else invent a new word entirely and keep your game face on while insisting that it's real.

Gonna go with option 3:

qwxtinga
verb  / 'qwx ting a /

to create something that has not yet existed and will soon be accepted as actual because that's typically how it's done

Alternate spelling: QQQQQQQ

Worth 70 points.

Pass the bag please I need more letters.


Happy qwxtinging today. 

Phone fight

Trying to text a message and every time I begin to type Rosh Hashanah my phone autocorrects it to Rush Limbaugh.

(This is probably what twitter is for, noting things like this.) (I sat at a cookout this weekend and was given a demonstration on Pintrest, because everyone who loves it concluded that it's kind of hard to explain and best shown. Then we talked about when folks got their first email account---median year 1996.)

< 140 characters.

Rosh Limbaugh

Rush Hashanah

Roshanabaugh

Rosenblaugh.

Still < 140 characters.

The End.

Sunday's Song: Oceans

I went through a dream phase where every time I fell asleep, I dreamt of sea creatures. 


It started with over a dozen dolphins, and then included whales, giant tortoises,  and in smaller versions, tadpoles, quickly growing into beautiful green frogs. 


Water water everywhere, sometimes a crick and sometimes an ocean.  Sometimes the sea creatures were in my dream bathtub and sometimes they were crashing in miles of mid-Atlantic surf. 


Sometimes the water was scarce and sometimes I was surrounded by it, or sailing along it. 


Ah, dreams.  Jung's playground. 


Today I heard a new-to-me song, straight from the altar.  It was dueted between a man and woman and it was so lovely.  It reminded me of the vastness of water that is the majority of this planet, and the symbols of the subconscious as represented by water, and somewhere in there I thought of Doctors Without Borders and Nations Without Borders.  But this song speaks to Trust Without Borders.

I scribbled the phrase and looked it up and lo and behold, it's a big song on many altars.  But this is my favorite version.