Ballerina Rose

 

Ballerina rose, April 30, 2023

The last day of a very wet and cool April.

(Note: The sunlight was perfect for the camera. I didn't have to do anything to this photo. I love pink and green)

For Complainers

“When you live through the mind-made self comprised of thought and emotion that is the ego, the basis for your identity is precarious because thought and emotion are by their very nature ephemeral, fleeting. So every ego is continuously struggling for survival, trying to protect and enlarge itself. To uphold the I-thought, it needs the opposite thought of "the other." The conceptual "I" cannot survive without the conceptual "other." The others are most other when I see them as my enemies. At one end of the scale of this unconscious egoic pattern lies the egoic compulsive habit of faultfinding and complaining about others. Jesus referred to it when he said, "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" At the other end of the scale, there is physical violence between individuals and warfare between nations. In the Bible, Jesus' question remains unanswered, but the answer is, of course: Because when I criticize or condemn another, it makes me feel bigger, superior.”

                  ― Eckhart Tolle

P.S. I just wish people would quit complaining all the time.

Finally a Title

I named my WIP today. It's final. And I am smiling. I never had a proper name for it all these years. I just borrowed names occasionally for saving the files or to keep myself going. Once I thought I had one, but it was too weird. Naming a novel is important for an author. It can be changed by the publisher, but at some point, the author as to see it as "the title."  It's a milestone for me. I just need Time.  It's going to be finished if I have Time. I see it. All of it. The entire story. Grinning from ear to ear here. These moments are rare in big projects. 5 words. Each three letters.

Surviving......

You are like an undulating billow warmed by the sun."

               — Thomas Hardy

(And I am)

Hope

“Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops at all.”

― Emily Dickinson

The UnSelfie titled Jane Reading her Social Media Feeds on Friday while still in her pajamas.

 

Haylee and I have been laughing at other suggested titles. Haylee is the BFF. John would have called this "My Wife every single morning. Step back."

Loud Like Love by Placebo

For all of our youth We have craved them Their beauty and their truth So we name them And somehow they pull us through We have craved them For all of our youth

— from the song, Loud Like Love written by Brian Molko of Placebo

Happy Easter

 

EASTER is about HOPE.

Happy Easter from Jane

Six gregorian chants for Easter night

Vexilla Regis (Hymnus)
Exsultet (Praeconium Paschale)
Haec Dies (Alleluia - Antiphona)
Victimae Paschali Laudes (Sequentia)
Exsultemus et Laetemur (Cantus Responsorialis)
Benedicamus Domino, Alleluia (Ad Dimittendum Populum)

Seeing the world from another view outside your own is essential for the lover, artist, politican.

“You can't love someone without imaginative sympathy, without beginning to see the world from another point of view. You can't be a good lover, a good artist, or a good politician without this capacity …” 

                                 — Julian Barnes