Ramblin' Rose

Occasional travel ramblings. And more . . .

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Winter Solstice: In the Bleak Midwinter

Posted by Ramblin' Rose at 11:01 AM

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Rose

Rambling

Oceans

Dignified Parisians

Herman Melville:

"Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself?"

Blue Morpho

Our 35th Anniversary

The abiding principle is forward motion with seamless and uncluttered transitions."

--Brenda Bynum

Heaven preserve us from all the sleek and dowdy virtues, such as punctuality, conscientiousness, fidelity and smugness."

--Violet Keppel to Vita Sackville-West

American in Beijing

Pensive Boddhisatva

We crave radiance in this austere world,
light in the spiritual darkness.

--Elizabeth Alexander

"I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world."
— Mary Anne Radmacher

I was born to live ten thousand lives with the heart of a child.

--Thich Nhat Hanh

Waiting

I like the idea that there's something beyond the painting. Beyond what you can see."

--George Condo

India Friends

Beginners

But we have only begun

to love the earth.

We have only begun to imagine the fullness of life.

How could we tire of hope?

So much is in a bud.

--Denise Levertov

The Thinker

Rebecca, Vibodh, iPad

Rebecca with two Geshes

Julia and Friend

Commencement 2010

Arnold and me, et al

Wonderland

Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Work of Art

Voyages

Looking back on the old year and preparing for new possibilities.

"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards."

--S. Kierkegaard

My Father

December 2009

"Sometimes I think creativity is magic; it's not a matter of finding an idea, but allowing the idea to find you."

--Maya Lin

Carefree in Nova Scotia

"Seldom, very seldom does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or mistaken."

--Jane Austen

Intersubjectivity

Meditative Practice

The Whirlpool

Joel Leivick

Creativity Conversation

Woman with Baby Carriage

Pablo Picasso

Lord Ganesha

Remover of Obstackles

Ganesha, Dalai Lama, Family

The poet Longellow

Author of "Evangeline"

Grapevines

Turn, turn my wheel! All things must change

to something new, to something strange.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Potter’s Wheel”

Summer ramblings

Drift and Intention

Cheers to friendship and writing!

Basketball lessons

Inauguration Day

And a private chat with Barack Obama

Atlanta: January 2009

Chance Encounter

FabIndia

Travelers

Shadows and Openings

Red Fort

Qutb Minar

At the Taj!

Atlanta Braves Fan

Lodhi Gardens

A Rose Grows in India

A Place for Ron

High Tea

Imperial Hotel

Lotus Temple

East of Kailash

Three Dog Day

Ashoka Pillar

Home away from Home

World Buddhist Centre

Cooking Dinner

Zzzz--Zzzz-Zen Buddhist

Back at Home, My Neighbor Craig

Irish Holiday Blessings

As I prepare to go to India . . . .

India Meanderings

An Atlas of Impossible Longing

Books I am Reading to Prepare for India

"What the Body Remembers" by Shauna Singh Baldwin
"A Suitable Boy" by Vikram Seth
"Arranged Marriage" by C.B. Divakaruni
"City of Djinns" by W. Dalrymple

Autumn

Gingko Leaves on the Emory Campus

The View from My Study at Home

Tell the Truth

but tell it Slant --Emily Dickinson

10,000 Villages

Casey at work!

Other Travelers

Rebecca, buying books, in Lucknow, India

Sean and Casey at Lollapolooza

Connemaara Ron

Randy: Zen Master, Magician, True Friend

Some Wild Irish Roses

A Rose is a Rose is a Rose

"These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or better ones; they are what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence." --Ralph Waldo Emerson
The flower in the header is a "knock-out rose" from our front yard.

Come Fairies . . .

"Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame."

--William Butler Yeats

. . . Follow My Journey

To Ireland: A Mystical, Mythic, and Mysterious Place

Cup of Tea?

Phil Coulter--songwriter, producer, Irish folk music star--fixes a cup of tea for me. Notice the roses on the teacup.

The I's have it: Where should I go next?

How do you feel about traveling?

Interior Landscapes: A Few Books I am Reading.

"The Moon is Always Female" by Marge Piercy
"Strange Kin: Ireland and the American South" by Kieran Quinlan
"The Irish File: Images from a Land of Grace" by Jon Michael Riley
"A Secret Map of Ireland" by Rosita Boland
"Deep Travel: Contemporary American Poets Abroad," edited by Sandra Meeks
"The Gathering" by Anne Enright, winner of the 2007 Man Booker Prize

"Adventure Divas: Searching the Globe for Women Who are Changing the World" by Holly Morris: Quotation from Helen Keller--"Life is a daring adventure, or nothing."
"The Wild Places" by Robert Macfarlane: "to achieve correspondence between belief and place. between inner and outer landscapes"--to "consider infinitude."

My friend, the mystical Marcia Wade, holding a book of poetry, "The Moon is Always Female."

Many Magees

In Dublin

In Galway

Journeys

"For there is a poetry in wildness . . . "

--Charles Dickens, "Martin Chuzzlewit"

"Summer is its own time."

--Colson Whtehead, "The Gangsters"

"In Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs."
--Sir John Pentland Mahaffy

"A good photograph is knowing where to stand."
--Ansel Adams

"The journey is the destination." ---Lao-Tsu

Writing has been "a journey where each point of arrival . . . turned out to be a stepping-stone rather than a destination."

---Seamus Heaney

"I'll walk where my own nature would be leading. It vexes me to choose another guide."

---Emily Bronte

For my writing friends

Things I am Doing to Prepare for Ireland

Listening to Irish Music
Shopping for a rain jacket.
Reading Poetry by Seamus Heaney. You can read some, too.
Surfing the web
Learning how to blog

Imagine

"The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of the Imagination" by J.K. Rowling

"It is our choices . . . that show what we truly are far more than our abilities."

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1999)

Classical Music Websites Worth Visiting

ASO
Carnegie Hall
Keeping Score with Michael Tilson Thomas
LA Phil
Local Classical Creators
Magna Tunes
NY Phil

Salman Rushdie and Me

Just the two of us, before Rushdie won the Booker of Booker of Bookers for "Midnight's Children." Click on the picture to see other stories about Rushdie at Emory.

Loosen up My Life Awhile

In his book, The Irish File: Images from a Land of Grace, Jon Michael Riley tells the story of coming upon a small plaque in County Kerry and reading this prayer:

Lead me to the well of stillness

Deep into my being of God

Down through my thoughts, feelings, concerns, desires

Deepen and broaden it within me

Help me to let go and to loosen up my life awhile

For your prompting.

To seep in through its sides in time

And fill my heart with your desire to direct my life flow.

"The Meaning of a Word" by Vincent Woods, Irish poet and playwright

I went fishing for a lost word

And found myself.

-----------------

I fished

In a ditch

In a dung hill

In a roofless house

I fished

With a tape recorder

With a camera

With a memory

In the ditch

I found clay

In the dung hill

I found flesh

In the house

I found a roof

With a tape recorder

I found languge

With a camera

I found sight

With a memory

I transformed them

I went fishing

And found my ancestors

Eating potatoes

From a lost word

Do Geese See God? And Other Palindromes I Like

Was it a car or a cat I saw?
Ma, I am a llama I am!
No panic, I nap on!
No way a papaya won!
Yahoo! Hay!
So many dynamos!

Subcommittee

Tony Cragg

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Curio + Abyss

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About Me

Ramblin' Rose: I am a traveler. I am trying to find myself in the world.

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