My husband sent me this video as a great campaign song for Kamala Harris. I can’t embed it but you can go to YouTube and type in Keb’Mo’ Put a Woman in Charge.
Walking
I open the book Walking: One Step at a Time by Erling Kagge to these words:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that one saves time travelling only two hours from one point to another instead of spending eight hours on the same journey. While this holds up mathematically, my experience is the opposite: time passes more quickly when I increase the speed of travel. My speed and time accelerate in parallel. It is as if the duration of a single hour becomes less than a clock-hour. When I am in a rush, I hardly pay attention to anything at all.“
He goes on to write that one’s sense of space gets smaller with an increased pace. He compares it to driving toward a mountain rather than walking to it. Walking, “The mountain up ahead, which slowly changes as you draw closer, feels like an intimate friend by the time you’ve arrived. Your eyes, ears, nose, shoulders, stomach and legs speak to the mountain, and the mountain replies. Time stretches out, independent of minutes and hours.”
“And this is precisely the secret held by all those who go by foot: life is prolonged when you walk. Walking expands time rather than collapses it.”
Exultation
What a thrill it is to see two people who smile with their whole being rather than scowl, lie, and hate.
Wow!
And yet we must continue to stay involved, and not become complacent. I’ll be writing postcards today and each of us can find our way to continue to promote the changes that the Biden administration has begun that will continue with Harris and Walz.
I love this from Heather Cox Richardson today.
Trump and J.D. Vance expected to continue their posturing as champions of the common man, but on that front the credentials of a New York real estate developer who inherited millions of dollars and of a Yale-educated venture capitalist pale next to a Nebraska-born schoolteacher. Bryan Metzger, politics reporter at Business Insider, pointed out that J.D. Vance tried to hit Walz as a “San Francisco-style liberal,” but while Vance lived in San Francisco as a venture capitalist between 2013 and 2017, Walz went to San Francisco for the first time just last month.
Head writer and producer of A Closer Look at Late Night with Seth Meyers Sal Gentile summed up Walz’s progressive politics and community vibe when he wrote on social media: “Tim Walz will expand free school lunches, raise the minimum wage, make it easier to unionize, fix your [carburetor], replace the old wiring in your basement, spray that wasp’s nest under the deck, install a new spring for your garage door and put a new chain on your lawn mower.”
Vice President Harris had a very deep bench from which to choose a running mate, but her choice of Walz seems to have been widely popular. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who are usually on opposite sides of the party, both praised the choice, prompting Ocasio-Cortez to post: “Dems in disconcerting levels of array.”
Harris and Walz held their first rally together tonight in Philadelphia, where Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, who had been a top contender for the vice presidential slot, fired up the crowd. “Each of us has a responsibility to get off the sidelines, to get in the game, and to do our part,” he said. “Are you ready to do your part? Are you ready to form a more perfect union? Are you ready to build an America where no matter what you look like, where you come from, who you love, or who you pray to, that this will be a place for you? And are you ready to look the next president of the United States in the eye and say, ‘Hello, Madam President?’ I am too, so let’s get to work!”
“Hello, Madame President.” In my lifetime. Yes!!
The Stone Whisperer
Today is our usual summer mix of sun and fog. We’re re-doing our garden, keeping the plants, but adding new soil, updating the irrigation system, and replacing rotting posts with stone. Yesterday, it wasn’t until evening that I saw stones had been placed. Today I saw the man who does the work alone.
Resilience
Leo Tolstoy:
As August unfolds, it is a reminder that time is fleeting, urging us to savor every moment and make the most of our days.
Adaptability
Abbott’s Lagoon has sand dunes. The river otters slide down them. The tide was low when I was there yesterday so I didn’t see otters. I was entranced to see plants growing on the sand by the lagoon.
I’m with these words of Leonard Cohen:
If you don’t become the ocean you’ll be seasick every day.
Abbott’s Lagoon
Today I went to Abbott’s Lagoon to meditate, ground, and renew.
Children
We’ve been with our four and a half year old grandson the last three days. That means being with happy people as we visit the places people of all ages and backgrounds gather and celebrate. We live in and share a world meant to nourish and be generous with All.
Hugging Our Interdependence
Thich Nhat Hanh:
“You have to really hug the [one] you are holding. You have to make him or her very real in your arms.. breathing consciously and hugging with all your body, spirit, and heart. Hugging meditation is a practice of mindfulness. “Breathing in, I know my dear one is in my arms, alive. Breathing out, he or she is so precious to me.” If you breathe deeply like that, holding the person you love, the energy of your care and appreciation will penetrate into [them] and they will be nourished and bloom like a flower.”
!
Walking to Calm
This morning, after reading these sobering words from Heather Cox Richardson’s substack, I went for a walk along the marsh.
She wrote:
Tonight, speaking to Christians at the Turning Point Action Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump made his plans to become a strongman clear: “Get out and vote. Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what: it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians…. Get out, you’ve got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again, we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”
This chilling statement comes after Trump praised autocratic Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán in his speech at the Republican National Convention last week and then publicly praised China’s president Xi Jinping for being “brilliant” because he “controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist.” It should also be read against the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s decision in Donald J. Trump v. United States that a president cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his “official duties.”
Cathy's Blog! 