Worth taking a look

Posted on December 9, 2015 by Mary Beth Frezon

I know some folks are doing various reminders of things we can be grateful for. I’m often tugged by a feeling of gratitude for different things I encounter but I like to remind myself and everyone to take a moment and look around. Chances are good you will find something worth pausing over and wondering over.

While I was getting this ready, look at the quote that came on the screen:

It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility. — Rachel Carson

Posted in Do the Work, From the Quote Box, life around us, taking time to look, the creative process | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

All the Ornaments

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Mary Beth Frezon

I come from a bunch of families who have a lot of ornaments for their Christmas trees. We had fun this weekend looking over my cousin Joe’s family tree, decorated with all kinds of memories. A former co-worker (thanks Elizabeth!) posted a link to this song by Craig Werth and I’m sending it out there to all my extended family and cousins galore:

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A beautiful day of views

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Mary Beth Frezon

I drove from home to Rensselaer and then to Latham this morning around 11 and it was a beautiful and mysterious day. There was a deep fog laying in most places and, in places that were a little higher, there was a heavy rime frost coating everything that was still in the shadows.

It was a strange looking view. The fog floated above the streams and flowed over the fields.

When I drove home, most of the fog had lifted and there was bright disk in the sky, the sun trying to break through the solid clouds. As I looked south over the Hudson, the fog still lay in the valleys and lots of wispy clouds rode over the hills between me and the river.

By the time I got to Schodack, things were clearer. The sky was still a dark blue-grey with lots of thick clouds. Made for interesting light on the hills. And then, a Van Gogh moment.

Black Crow flies over
A golden December field
Late afternoon sun.

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Being in the World — Pico Iyer

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Mary Beth Frezon

Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that the Fourteenth Dalai Lama is famous for his laughter, the sudden eruption of almost helpless giggles or a high-pitched shaking of the body. Seen from the vantage point of one who meditates several hours a day, traveling to the place where everything is connected, much of our fascination with surface or with division seems truly hilarious… Talking about friends and enemies is a little like holding on to this hair on your arm and claiming it as a friend, because you see it daily, and calling the hair on your back an enemy, because you never see it at all. Talking of how you are a Buddhist and therefore opposed to the Judeo-Christian teaching is like solemnly asserting that your right nostril is the source of everything good, and your left nostril a place of evil. The doctrine of “universal responsibility” is not only universal but obvious: it’s like saying that every part of us longs for our legs, our eyes, our lungs to be healthy. If one part suffers, we all do. — Pico Iyer

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Also From the Quote Box

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Mary Beth Frezon

Life and Reality are not things you can have for yourself unless you accord them to all others. — Alan Watts

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