A friend gave me the book The Poet and the Silk Girl inscribed with the author Satsuki Ina’s dedication, Okage Sama De which means I am here because of those around me. The literal translation is: I am here because of the shade you provided me. I’m with that today, the day before the shortest day of the year, tomorrow, Sunday, at 7:03 AM PST.
I think of two quotes by Pablo Casals.
We ought to think that we are one of the leaves of a tree, and the tree is all humanity. We cannot live without the others, without the tree.
The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.
And each day, a new birth, a miracle.
The original model of a Little Free Library. Books shared with All!
Newly six year old Grandson was concerned that we’d lost the reins tying the reindeer to Santa’s Lego sleigh so he requested a piece of string, and here we are with the world intact.
The news of our country is staggering, and it is December, a time of gatheringand celebrating what connects us with nature and the seasons, the nature in each of us.On Tuesday, I was at Cavallo Point and yesterday took the ferry to San Francisco for our yearly book club gathering at The Waterfront.One half of the restaurant was closed because the ever-increasing winter tides came flooding in.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration said it will dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, one of the world’s leading Earth science research institutions.One reason is that their research shows climate change. The other is that the Colorado governor won’t obey Trump in pardoning former Colorado election official Tina Peters, convicted by a jury for state crimes in facilitating a data breach in her quest to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Trump has granted her a “full pardon”, of course, but it needs to be Governor Polis who pardons her since it is a state crime.
And so we approach the Solstice, a time in the northern hemisphereto honor the richness in the dark and return to the evolving expansiveness of light.
My eye is caught by the beauty and dignity of a Great Blue HeronHunkering before take-off and flightA Kingfisher
I rise at four, meditate and open Arthur Sze’s poetry book, The Glass Constellation, to these lines in the poem “The Flower Path”.
You must learn to see a pond in the shape of the character mind,
Walk through a garden and see it from your ankles;
Wondering what the shape of the character mind is I ask AI who responds:
The primary Chinese character for “mind” is 心 (xīn), which looks like a stylized, simple drawing of a physical heart, with a central vertical line, two curved strokes on the sides, and a dot at the bottom, representing the ancient belief that the heart is the seat of thought and emotion, often translated as “heart-mind”.
And then I wonder if AI is a who, which brings me to Dr. Seuss’s book Horton Hears a Who!, and the words “a person’s a person no matter how small”, and as the mind curves in the shape of a heart, I think of how tragic it is that we have people leading our country who’ve never read Dr. Seuss.
Heather Cox Richardson: Today is Human Rights Day, celebrated internationally in honor of the day seventy-seven years ago, December 10, 1948, when the United Nations General Assembly announced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
Heather goes on and adds this –
Last year, under President Joe Biden, the White House celebrated Human Rights Day by recommitting to “upholding the equal and inalienable rights of all people.” The State Department bestowed the Human Rights Defender Award on eight individuals who have defended migrant workers, LGBTQ+ individuals, women, and democracy. The recipients came from Kuwait, Bolivia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Burma, Eswatini, Ghana, Colombia, and Azerbaijan.
The U.S. government did not recognize Human Rights Day this year.
Instead, Humeyra Pamuk of Reuters reported, administration officials are threatening to place sanctions on the International Criminal Court to guarantee it will not investigate Trump and his top officials. “There is growing concern…that in 2029 the ICC will turn its attention to the president, to the vice president, to the secretary of war and others, and pursue prosecutions against them,” a Trump administration official told Pamuk. “That is unacceptable, and we will not allow it to happen.”
They will not allow it to happen. Hmmm! The world conscience against a few. We’ll see.
Aging Mountain lLon near our house decorated for the Holidays!
These days I’m with the magic of candlelight even as I read the news.
I was on a Zoom Call on Monday and AI gave a beautiful summary of the experience and journey.
We can thank Chat GPT for this as posted by Heather Cox Richardson.
When G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbersasked ChatGPT to fact-check an article for him yesterday, the chatbot couldn’t get its head around modern America. It told him there were “multiple factual impossibilities” in his article, including his statements that “[t]he current Secretary of Defense is a former talk show host for Fox News,” “[t]he Deputy Director of the FBI used to guest-host Sean Hannity’s show,” and “Jeanine Pirro is the U.S. District Attorney for DC.”
“Since none of these statements are true,” it told Morris, “they undermine credibility unless signposted as hyperbole, fiction, or satire.”
But of course, Morris’s statements were not “factual impossibilities.” In the United States of America under President Donald J. Trump, they are true.
May that change as people wake and vote for democracy, support, unity, and humanity.
A burning candle shows the many ways to give and offer Light!
I sit outside with the book Silence In the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge.
Immersed in silence, I hear leaves fall, the tingle of a windchime, and the giggle of a young child pushed on a swing by her dad.
From the book: I find myself thinking about how silence can be experienced without the use of techniques. The threshold for finding silence and balance can in fact be lowered. You don’t need a course in silence or relaxation to be able simply to pause. Silence can be created anywhere, anytime – it’s just in front of your nose. I create it for myself as I walk up the stairs, prepare food or merely focus on my breathing. Sure, we are all part of the same continent, but the potential wealth of being an island for yourself is something you carry around with you all the time.
Looking across from Sausalito to Angel IslandSanta plays hooky from the North Pole as he enjoys the sun in Sausalito.Net reflected in the water, catching silence, not fish.
I’ve been trying to understand Trump’s boat attacks. Why, especially when he pardons a man at the top of drug trafficking?
This guest essay by Phil Klay in the NY Times today allows me to understand.
Klay begins with this:
When Trump administration officials post snuff films of alleged drug boats blowing up, of a weeping migrant handcuffed by immigration officers or of themselves in front of inmates at a brutal El Salvadoran prison, I often think of a story St. Augustine told in his “Confessions.”
In the fourth century A.D., a young man named Alypius arrived in Rome to study law. He was a decent sort. He knew the people at the center of the empire delighted in cruel gladiatorial games, and he promised himself he would not go. Eventually, though, his fellow students dragged him to a match. At first, the crowd appalled Alypius. “The entire place seethed with the most monstrous delight in the cruelty,” Augustine wrote, and Alypius kept his eyes shut, refusing to look at the evil around him.
But then a man fell in combat, a great roar came from the crowd and curiosity forced open Alypius’s eyes. He was “struck in the soul by a wound graver than the gladiator in his body.” He saw the blood, and he drank in savagery. Riveted, “he imbibed madness.” Soon, Augustine said, he became “a fit companion for those who had brought him.”
We must continue to stay on top of what’s happening, and not allow what happened to Alypius, to happen to us. It’s a horrific manipulation to destroy humanity and the continuing development and evolution of peace, communion, fairness and democracy.
St. FrancisHarmony at Tennessee ValleySerenity at Muir Beach
Our six year old grandson has been here visiting, so we’ve enjoyed a grand old time, including fatigue, as some of us are older and more energetic than others. Tuesday was a perfect beach day. A friend asks if my grandson still believes in Santa. It seems so. He knows the Santas at the shopping centers are fake, but he seems to believe that Mr. and Mrs. Santa are up at the North Pole orchestrating the making of toys with the elves. Well, I believe it is so, so maybe that’s why. If you haven’t read, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus”, you must read it. Santa is as real as love, and truth, and giving, and gifts.
Also, my grandson and I love the book, the Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien didn’t always have the money for gifts, but he had the gift of intellect and wit, and so letters were written explaining each year why the gifts were destroyed by the North Polar Bear, a most wonderful affectionate, and generous, though clumsy guy, and so, perhaps, for some, no gifts that year but a wonderful letter of explanation. Check out the Tolkien book of Father Christmas Letters on Amazon, or maybe in your local independent bookstore. I had to go to England to get my copy but that was many years ago. Now, it’s more readily available.
We are with the King Tides that accompany the December full moon. Grandson was enchanted with water over the path in Sausalito, and the designs in the water as he sat and observed the ever-changing gifts.
Wow! The joy of a high King Tide!Muir Beach December 2nd.Surfers at Muir Beach, a rarity.
Cathy's Blog! 