Edit

I just discovered Edit, a design firm that has created elegantly simple posters of musical genres. You can view the entire set here, and once at the site, click on the image to move from one to the next. Love 'em.

Aristotle's Challenge

From The Nicomachean Ethics:

Anyone can become angry -- that is easy. 

But to be angry with the right person, 

to the right degree, 

at the right time, 

for the right purpose and in the right way -- 

this is not easy.

  -- Aristotle

Ceremony

From Sea Level, a book of poetry by Suzanne Matson:

Ceremony

To hear this music I have dressed with care,
have pulled the ritual pieces from their drawers--
fine stockings, old brooch, a band for my hair.
I am clean like mint. For these hours
when early night and scouring cold conspire
we will gather in a lit place, restless
until the conductor lifts the thin wire
of our attention. Another man directs us.
I love the maestro's fine hands, all the rapt
taut beauty he shapes in air, cutting loose
our small private lives so they may rise, rise, locked
together in an abstract joy like prayer.
I need a Father, need a God, and fear
the need. No matter. Though close, He is not here.

From an article in Fast Company that can be found here, I share the following. Note that the blue text includes the links from the article.

------

Gain Awareness, Be Grateful

One smart, simple question on curated Q & A site Quora asked “How do the most successful people start their day?”. The most popular response came from a devotee of Tony Robbins, the self-help guru who pitched the power of mindful first-hour rituals long before we all had little computers next to our beds.

Robbins suggests setting up an “Hour of Power,” “30 Minutes to Thrive,” or at least “Fifteen Minutes to Fulfillment.” Part of it involves light exercise, part of it involves motivational incantations, but the most accessible piece involves 10 minutes of thinking of everything you’re grateful for: in yourself, among your family and friends, in your career, and the like. After that, visualize “everything you want in your life as if you had it today.”

Robbins offers the “Hour of Power” segment of his Ultimate Edge series as a free audio stream (here’s the direct MP3 download). Blogger Mike McGrath also wrote a concise summary of the Hour of Power). You can be sure that at least some of the more driven people you’ve met in your career are working on Robbins’ plan.

------

How are you going to start your day?

The Last Time

When was the last time you did something for the first time?

I found this question in a document on my computer. I can't recall how it came to me or when. It made me smile, as I'm sure it did the first time I read it.

Think about it.

It makes me think of lululemon's challenge to do one thing each day that scares me. (They actually got the line from Eleanor Roosevelt.) But something scary is different than just doing something for the first time.

Regardless, it is something to keep in mind. It's a way to continue learning, to keep growing, to exercise the brain, to increase worldview.

So far this year the items that come to mind as firsts are:

• Attending the Paris and Santa Fe operas
• Trying the P90X fitness routine
• Beginning work on my thesis
• Drawing on an iPad

This is actually difficult. I've eaten at restaurants for the first time. I've travelled along different streets. I've had coffee in new shops. I've tried new mascara. I've read new books. But does this really count? I mean, when is the last time I did something that really felt like a first? 

Something to consider.

Humming Bird

Humming Bird

by DH Lawrence

I can imagine, in some otherworld

Primeval-dumb, far back

In that most awful stillness, that only gasped and hummed,

Humming-birds raced down the avenues.

Before anything had a soul,

While life was a heave of matter, half inanimate,

This little bit chipped off in brilliance

And went whizzing through the slow, vast, succulent stems.

I believe there were no flowers then,

In the world where the humming-bird flashed ahead of creation.

I believe he pierced the slow vegetable veins with his long beak.

Probably he was big

As mosses, and little lizards, they say, were once big.

Probably he was a jabbing, terrifying monster.

We look at him through the wrong end of the telescope of Time,

Luckily for us.

Within My Garden, Rides a Bird

Within My Garden, Rides a Bird

by Emily Dickinson

Within my Garden, rides a Bird

Upon a single Wheel --

Whose spokes a dizzy Music make

As 'twere a travelling Mill --

He never stops, but slackens

Above the Ripest Rose --

Partakes without alighting

And praises as he goes,

Till every spice is tasted --

And then his Fairy Gig

Reels in remoter atmospheres --

And I rejoin my Dog,

And He and I, perplex us,

If positive, 'twere we --

Or bore the Garden in the Brain

This Curiosity --

But He, the best Logician,

Refers my clumsy eye --

To just vibrating Blossoms!

An Exquisite Reply!

Like a Leaf

This is how I feel today.

Off the Shelf

Some of what I'm reading:

Ethics. Vision. Courage. Reality.

Greatness

Short teaches at Ole Miss. Love the poem about brothers.

Moon Fishing

I love to make books. This one showcases Lisel Mueller's poem titled Moon Fishing. I love the poem.

Quotes on Yellow Sticky

A large yellow Post-It curls at the edges. It has been on my desk for a long, long time. Waiting to have something done with it. Well, here goes:

Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story.
     -- John Barth

To destroy is always the first step in any creation.
     -- ee cummings

We consume our tomorrows fretting about our yesterdays.
     -- Aulus Persius Flaccus

It is the fine excesses of life that make it worth living.
     -- Richard Le Gallienne

Art is not for the cultivated taste. It is to cultivate taste.
     -- Nikki Giovanni

If now isn't a good time for the truth I don't see when we'll get to it.
     -- Nikki Giovanni

Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts.
     -- Niccki Giovanni (wise dude)

He only profits from praise who values criticism.
     -- Heinrich Heine

So there you have it...

Ah, the French...

Courtesy of Victoria, and glad she shared...

Butterflies and Colored Pencils

How I occupied my time while others slept on the journey to France.
Or, how to decorate an envelope with colored pencils and butterflies.
And a few birds at the end.

So They Will Come --

From Cavafy:
So They Will Come --

One candle is enough.    Its dim light
is more apt,        more genial
when Love comes,      when its Shadows come.

One candle is enough.        Tonight the room
should not have much light.         Fully inside the dream,
evocative,     in the low light --
inside the dream like this,          I will have visions
so Love will come,      so its Shadows will come.

(1920)
Translated by Aliki Barnstone