“…the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.” There is a Zen adage that states: “No two people have ever met and departed unchanged.†It is chilling to me to acknowledge that a simple question, asked by a curious student, profoundly altered the direction, scope, depth, and trajectory of my life. Without … [Read more…]
“To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.” – Walt Whitman Yesterday was a multi-miracle day. Waking up in the morning and going to sleep last evening were both mysterious miracles. Throughout the day I experienced many mini-miracles, in fact, if Walt Whitman is correct, there were too many … [Read more…]
http://sfglobe.com/?id=14064&src=share_fb_new_14064 “According to the textbooks, a wolf is a hunter, an animal of prey. But the Inuit, the people of the North, take a different view of it. They have their own idea of why the wolf was created. In the beginning – so the legend says – there was a man and a woman, … [Read more…]
Excerpt: BOFAW. “I suggested that believing in God was like catching poison oak; some people do and some don’t and no amount of word-making will likely change that.†Muir was considered an “uneducated tramp,†by some and an “ignoramus†by Calif. State geologist Josiah Whitney. His vision of saving vast wilderness areas as “parklands†for … [Read more…]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_nKFBVT-_g According to Ralph W. Emerson, “All of Nature is a metaphor of the human mind.†If this is so, perhaps the same can be said for music or; perhaps the evolution of music mirrors the evolution of the human brain. Although some of the art that appeared on cave walls at least 40,000 years … [Read more…]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYqz8bWG8Sw I usually played one Gregorian chant each year. It was intriguing that normally rowdy students suddenly became quiet or talked in hushed whispers. The simplistic style is similar to music heard, for thousands of years, in churches, temples, mosques, monasteries, kivas, ceremonial chambers, perhaps even caves. Ironically, I did not play it for “religious†… [Read more…]
“You know what music is? God’s little reminder that there’s something else besides us in this universe; harmonic connection between all living beings, everywhere, even the stars.” – Robin Williams in August Rush (2007) It may be surprising for music lovers to hear modern biologists describe music as superfluous, biologically useless, or the result of … [Read more…]
“These temple-destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar. Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water tanks people’s cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the … [Read more…]
“Always, in truth, Muir found more than he expected in nature. Never did he get enough of wildness. Of those who have written of nature surprisingly well—Gilbert White, Henry Thoreau, Richard Jefferies, W. H. Hudson—John Muir was the wildest. He was the most active, the most at home in the wilderness, the most daring, the … [Read more…]
“When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.” – John Muir It is highly likely that only the most ardent followers of John … [Read more…]