An Egg for Arbor Day

CAPSULA MUNDI ~ BURIAL PODS
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"Capsula Mundi is a cultural and broad-based project, which envisions a different approach to the way we think about death. It's an egg-shaped pod, an ancient and perfect form, made of biodegradable material, where our departed loved ones are placed for burial. . . . The Capsula will then be buried as a seed in the earth."

With Easter (April 21), Earth Day (April 22), and Arbor Day (April 26, 2019)
all taking place last week, it seems the perfect time to learn

More about burial pods:
Facebook
Business Insider

&

More on the general topic of burial:
From Here to Eternity:
Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
by Caitlin Doughty

"Adults who are racked with death anxiety are not odd birds who have contracted some exotic disease, but men and women whose family and culture have failed to knit the proper protective clothing for them to withstand the icy chill of mortality."

~ Irvin D. Yalom, psychiatrist and professor ~
(b June 13, 1931)
"The ritual doesn't involve sneaking into a cemetery in the dead of night to peek in on a mummy. The ritul involves pulling someone I loved, and thus my grief, out into the light of day. . . . No matter what it takes, the hard work begins for the West to haul our fear, shame, and grief surrounding death out into the disinfecting light of the sun."

~ Caitlin Doughty, author, mortician, Good Death Advocate ~
(b August 19, 1984)

**************

Stained Glass Dome ~Driehaus Museum ~ Chicago

Movies about Emily Dickinson:
The Belle of Amherst, 1976
A Quiet Passion, 2016
Wild Nights with Emily, 2018

Poem by Emily Dickinson
Sic transit gloria mundi
["Thus passes the glory of the world"]

"Sic transit gloria mundi,"
"How doth the busy bee,"
"Dum vivimus vivamus,"
I stay mine enemy! —

Oh "veni, vidi, vici!"
Oh caput cap-a-pie!
And oh "memento mori"
When I am far from thee!

Hurrah for Peter Parley!
Hurrah for Daniel Boone!
Three cheers, sir, for the gentleman
Who first observed the moon!

Peter, put up the sunshine;
Pattie, arrange the stars;
Tell Luna, tea is waiting,
And call your brother Mars!

Put down the apple, Adam,
And come away with me,
So shalt thou have a pippin
From off my father's tree!

I climb the "Hill of Science,"
I "view the landscape o'er;"
Such transcendental prospect,
I ne'er beheld before!

Unto the Legislature
My country bids me go;
I'll take my india rubbers,
In case the wind should blow!

During my education,
It was announced to me
That gravitation, stumbling
Fell from an apple tree!

The earth upon an axis
Was once supposed to turn,
By way of a gymnastic
In honor of the sun!

It was the brave Columbus,
A sailing o'er the tide,
Who notified the nations
Of where I would reside!

Mortality is fatal—
Gentility is fine,
Rascality, heroic,
Insolvency, sublime

Our Fathers being weary,
Laid down on Bunker Hill;
And tho' full many a morning,
Yet they are sleeping still,—

The trumpet, sir, shall wake them,
In dreams I see them rise,
Each with a solemn musket
A marching to the skies!

A coward will remain, Sir,
Until the fight is done;
But an immortal hero
Will take his hat, and run!

Good bye Sir, I am going;
My country calleth me;
Allow me, Sir, at parting,
To wipe my weeping e'e.

In token of our friendship
Accept this "Bonnie Doon,"
And when the hand that plucked it
Hath passed beyond the moon,

The memory of my ashes
Will consolation be;
Then farewell Tuscarora,
And farewell, Sir, to thee!

**************

The Glory of the World!

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, May 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ See related post: E is for Earth, Easter, Eggs
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

No Bigger Than a Peanut

MATRYOSHKAS
ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Unicef Photograph ~ Odesa, Ukraine
"Boxes within boxes, dolls within dolls, worlds within worlds.
Everything was connected. Everything in the whole world."
(463)
What a good turn of events it was for me to receive a copy of Kate Atkinson's novel -- One Good Turn: A Jolly Murder Mystery -- as a souvenir of Edinburgh from Gerry's Cousin Jonny. I had watched a few seasons of Case Histories, the British crime drama set and filmed in Edinburgh; but this was my first time sitting down to actually read one of the Jackson Brodie mysteries upon which the series is based. One Good Turn turns out to be the kind of thriller that you start reading on one day and finish the next, with only a few brief hours of sleep in between.

In addition to the primary investigation, numerous distracting and entertaining subplots captured my attention: the Edinburgh Festival playing around the clock, a dear old cat named Jellybean, sadly, in failing health, and -- most intriguing of all -- a set of nesting Russian dolls whose presence in the text provide a constant reminder of hidden worlds and secrets.

Introductory Montage & Theme Song: Case Histories & One Good Turn
When the character Martin Canning, a successful author of crime novels, becomes involved in a real crime, he peers into the travel bag of the mysterious man whose life he has inadvertently saved:

"He had seen inside the bag and there was nothing that revealed anything about Paul Bradley, just a black plastic box, a mystery within a mystery. Perhaps the box would contain another box, and inside that box another box, and so on, like the Russian dolls. Like his own Russian dolls, the prelude to his brief courtship and consummation with the girl from the matryoshka stall."
(One Good Turn 155 - 56)

I myself have long been a student and a collector of matryoshki, and once upon a time totally immersed myself in Susan Stewart's cultural study On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. With ultra - simplicity, Stewart (scholar and poet) captures the mystery of the matryoshka in three simple words: "within within within," a phrase to open your mind and send a quick shiver down your spine. I felt those same goosebumps when Atkinson describes Martin's trip to St. Petersburg:

" . . . there were dolls, thousands of dolls, legion upon legion of matryoshka, not just the ones you could see but also the ones you couldn't -- dolls within dolls, endlessly replicating and diminishing, like an infinite series of mirrors . . . Martin had never given matryoshka much thought before but here in St. Petersburg their ranks seemed omnipresent and unavoidable . . . big ones, small ones, tall ones and squat ones . . . dolls in the shape of cats, dogs, frogs, there were American presidents and Soviet leaders, there were five - doll sets and fifty - doll sets, there were cosmonauts and clowns, there were crudely made dolls and ones that had been exquisitely painted by real artists. By the time he left the hotel shop Martin felt dizzy, his eyes swimming with endless reflections of dolls' faces . . . ." (One Good Turn 232 - 34, emphasis added)

"You can think of the universe as a set of wooden Russian matryoshka dolls, with each doll having a smaller one inside of it. The entire visible universe is the outermost doll, and nested inside it are galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets -- right down to the smallest doll, which is you. But inside of you is an even smaller doll that somehow has the biggest doll inside of it. When you figure out this riddle, you will have discovered the key to your ascension!"
~ Elizabeth Clare Prophet

This ethereal, eerie, enmeshed elegance is what Stewart calls the "profound interiorty" of the doll / dollhouse (61); and philosopher John O'Donohue refers to as "the infinity of our interiority."

Martin is mesmerized by both the "profund interiority" of the colorful stacking matryoshi and the charming salesgirl at the matryoshka stall. When he ventures out once again in search of souvenirs, the salesgirl Irinia "started picking up different dolls, opening them up, cracking them all like eggs" (OGT 236). Like eggs! I love that! After all, there are similarities between the two! Everyone knows that an egg -- especially an Easter Egg -- can contain a surprise!

As a keepsake, Martin chooses "an expensive fifteen - doll set . . . attractive things, their fat - bellied stomachs painted with 'winter scenes' from Pushkin. Works of art really, too good for his mother, and he decided he would keep them for himself. 'Very beautiful,' " On the way home, he thinks of the nested dolls he has just purchased, tucked away, out of sight, in "the thin plastic carrier bag that contained his newspaper - wrapped dolls, snugly inside each other now" -- minatures within miniatures within miniatures. It crosses Martin's mind that in picking out the Pushkin set he had devoted "more contemplation than either the task or the dolls merited" (OGT 236 - 237).

Curiously though, his thought process aligns with Susan Stewart's theory of the miniature and the gigantic, especially when it comes to "tourist art," tchotchkes that don't cost much money and serve little purpose: "Use value is transformed into display value . . . Those qualities of the object which link it most closely to its function in native context are emptied and replaced by both display value and the symbolic system of the consumer." Of course, one might rightly observe that nesting dolls don't really serve a purpose; but, as Stewart explains, "Even the most basic use of the toy object -- to be played with -- is not often found in the world of the dollhouse" or in the world of "tourist art":

The miniature comes into the chain of signification at a remove: there is no original miniature; there is only the thing in "itself," which has already been erased, which has disappeared . . . the miniature typifies the structure of memory, of childhood . . . from its petite sincerity arises an "authentic" subject . . . . (Stewart 62, 149, 171 - 72, emphasis added)

For a fleeting second, Martin thinks about a nice set of nesting dolls for his mother but rejects this impulse, resolving instead to buy "something ordinary . . . because she deserved nothing better than ordinary -- a little peasant set, aprons and headscarves." Then he reconsiders even this downmarket gift, knowing that whatever he picks will end up neglected "amongst her other cheap knick - knacks." Instead of the peasant dolls, he moves down yet another rung on the souvenir ladder, purchasing at last "a fridge magnet for his mother, a little varnished wooden matryoshka" -- the merest echo of the real thing. In keeping with Stewart's observation of tourist art, this lone wooden trinket cannot even perform the sole function of the matryoshka -- to be nested within a set.

A few years later, back in Edinburgh, Martin's housecleaner Sophia admires his Pushkin matryoshki:

"He had a set of Russian dolls, matryoshka, the expensive kind. . . . The writer's dolls were lined up on the windowsill [display value!], she dusted them every week. Sometimes she put them inside each other, playing with them like she had done with her own set when she was a child. She used to think they were eating each other [!]. Her matryoshka had been cheap, crudely painted in primary colours, but the dolls that belonged to the writer were beautiful, painted by a real artist with scenes from Pushkin -- so many many artists in Russia with no jobs now, painting boxes and dolls and eggs, anything for tourists. The writer had a fifteen - doll set! How she would have loved that when she was a girl." (OGT 220 - 21)

Imagine Sophia's shock to enter Martin's well - kept house for a routine cleaning, only to find the dolls "scattered everywhere, little skittles knocked flying. She picked one up without thinking and put it in the pocket of her jacket, feeling the smooth, round, satisfying shape of it" (OGT 222)

Perhaps drawn to its "petite sincerity," both Sophia and, later in the day, Jackson take the opportunity to pocket a miniature matryoshka, as a kind of talisman to sustain them through the stressful criminal investigtion process that lies before them. Coincidentally, the word keeps coming up throughout Jackson's day (as my sisters and I have discussed previously). When investigating a suspicious "Import - Export" business, he comes across a "wall of boxes, all stencilled with one mysterious word, 'Matryoshka.'" When he stops by the Edinburgh Festival, he notices a circus act entitled " 'Matryoshka' . . . The word of the day," he tells himself.

Jackson . . . spotted something on the carpet, a tiny painted wooden doll, no bigger than a peanut. He picked it up and peered at it . . . 'What is that?' he asked, holding the little doll up for her inspection.

Louise: "It's from one of those Russian doll sets,' she said, 'the ones that nest inside each other. Matri - something."

Jackson: "Matryoshka?"

Louise: "Yes."

Jackson: "This one doesn't open."

Louise: "That's because it's the last one. The baby."

Jackson pocketed the doll. . . .

He felt the peanut - baby doll in his jacket pocket. The layers of the onion. Chinese boxes, Chinese whispers. Russian whispers. Secrets within secrets. Dolls within dolls. (320, 342 - 43, 363)

****************
dialogue from One Good Turn (2006)
by Kate Atkinson (b 1951),
scholarly, spell - binding British novelist
****************
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, April 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ See related essay: Russian Straw Dolls
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Continued Connections

TOWN & GOWN BISTRO
A PUB WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"Making your way in the world today
takes everything you got
Taking a break from all your worries
sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away? . . .
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came
You want to be where you can see
The troubles are all the same
You want to be where everybody knows your name . . .
You want to go where people know
The people are all the same
You want to go where everybody knows your name. . . "

~ Song from Cheers ~

****************
At some level, isn't that what we all want -- to be known? It's what Hafiz calls "that great pull to connect," to be in synch, to harmonize, to be part and parcel of the universe. Think of the photographer in The Memory Keeper's Daughter, placing one photograph beside another, hoping to find that "the entire world is contained within each living person. . . . he yearned to capture on film: these rare moments where the world seemed unified, coherent, everything contained in a single fleeting image" (similar project).

I know I've posted this poem before, but it [Red]bears repeating:

With That Moon Language

Admit something:

Everyone you see,
you say to them,
“Love me.” [Choose Me!]

Of course you do not do this out loud,
otherwise someone would call the cops.

Still, though, think about this,
this great pull in us to connect.

Why not become the one who lives
with a full moon in each eye
that is always saying,

with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye
in this world
is dying to hear?

Hafiz (1325 – 1389)
14th - Century Beloved Persian poet and lyrical genius

****************
Writing six centuries after Hafiz, the Irish poet, priest, and philosopher John O'Donohue (1956 - 2008) looks at "this great pull" in a different, unsettling way. Yes, of course, we all want to feel connected, but is that always such a good thing? In Anam Cara: A Book of Celctic Wisdom, O'Donohue analyzes our craving for connection. Like Hafiz, O'Donohue asks us to search our souls and "Admit something":

We assume too readily that we share one world with other people. It is true at the objective level that we inhabit the same physical space as other humans; the sky is, after all, the one visual constant that unites everyone’s perception of being in the world. Yet this outer world offers no access to the inner world of an individual. At a deeper level, each person is the custodian of a completely private, individual world. Sometimes our beliefs, opinions, and thoughts are ultimately ways of consoling [does he mean "deceiving"] ourselves that we are not alone with the burden of a unique, inner world. It suits us to pretend that we all belong to the one world, but we are more alone than we realize.

I feel somewhat dismayed yet intrigued by Donohue's suspicion that we are fundamentally disparate beings, despite our yearning for connection. Do I deceive myself that connection and coincidence govern our mutual existence? Possibly. Do I write essays and blog posts not so much in celebration of our similar outlooks but to console myself over a mutual failure to "connect, only connect" (see also: Commonplace Book, King & Queen, Handful of Dust, Heroine of Sensibility)? I hope not. Still, O'Donohue's words are haunting.

The Cheers song says we want to see that "troubles are all the same" and be where "people are all the same," but maybe, as O'Donohue suggests, we are incorrect in our assumption that this could ever be our reality. Perhaps such a place exists only on television or deep in our romantic imaginings. Yet, after ten years of blogging on this topic, beginning with my E. M. Forster - inspired Mission Statement, the connections keep on coming! They appear of their own accord, neither imaginary nor forced, woven daily through the Great Conversation. Only recently, after having all three read the same novel -- Jodi Picoult's Small Great Things [more on this later] -- my sisters and I were discussing our shared perceptions of literary coincidence:

Kit: Do you ever notice that sometimes when you read a book or see a movie or learn a new word -- all of a sudden it's everywhere!

Peg: I know what you mean about universe coincidences. I’ve sometimes wondered how this is possible because it seems to happen on such random topics.

Kit: Precisely!

Di: I love when things like that happen! Sometimes Tom and I will be talking, and one of us says something, then the person on TV will say it. Like the universe is singing together.

[Or as another friend put it: this infinite symphony of existence.]

How appropriate that they should both pick a musical metaphor to describe this phenomenon of universal synchronicity!

I am particularly fond of literary connections that fall into the category of "connections about connections." Take, for example, One Good Turn, a delightfully dense British mystery in which the endearing private dectective Jackson Brodie becomes obsessed with puzzling out the distinction between a connection and a coincidence:

Jackson: There's a connection between the two girls, there has to be. . . .

Louise: "Could just be a coincidence."

Jackson: "You're playing devil's advocate. And I don't believe in coincidence . . . A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen." (343 - 44)

Jackson: "You say coincidence . . . I say connection. A baffling, impenetrably complex connection, but nonetheless a connection. . . . he could see something that made sense. A tangible connection, not just a coincidence." (369, 374)

Louise: Jackson had been . . . Making his bloody 'connections' everywhere. (435)

Jackson: "You say connection, I say connection." (448)

****************
dialogue from One Good Turn (2006)
by Kate Atkinson (b 1951),
scholarly, spell - binding British novelist
****************
. . . and lastly . . .

"Boxes within boxes, dolls within dolls, worlds within worlds.
Everything was connected. Everything in the whole world."
(463)

This closing thought on interiority & connection . . .
TO BE CONTINUED . . .
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, April 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST ~ Open Your Mind!
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

He Said She Said

CALYPSO'S ISLAND
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Odysseus And Calypso (1630 - 35)
by Jacob Jordaens (1593 - 1678)
According to Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus was ten years away at the Trojan War, then futher delayed by an additional ten years of misadventures, the last seven or eight of which were spent with the nymph Calypso, on the island of Ogygia.

Odysseus remained enchanted by the singing and perpetual weaving of Calypso -- a touching parallel to his wife Penelope who was tirelessly weaving -- and unweaving -- while awaiting his return. Eventually Calypso relented and helped Odysseus build the boat (depicted above by Jordaens) that would take him back to his wife on the Island of Ithaca.

In this heart - breaking poem by Archibald MacLeish, Odysseus bids Calypso farewell and explains the rationale for his departure and his choice:

Calypso's Island

I know very well, goddess, she is not beautiful
As you are: could not be. She is a woman,
Mortal, subject to the chances: duty of

Childbed, sorrow that changes cheeks, the tomb --
For unlike you she will grow gray, grow older,
Gray and older, sleep in that small room.

She is not beautiful as you, O golden!
You are immortal and will never change
And can make me immortal also, fold

Your garment round me, make me whole and strange
As those who live forever, not the while
That we live; keep me from those dogging dangers --

Ships and the wars -- in this green, far-off island,
Silent of all but sea's eternal sound
Or sea - pine's when the lull of surf is silent.

Goddess, I know how excellent this ground,
What charmed contentment of the removed heart
The bees make in the lavender where pounding

Surf sounds far off and the bird that darts
Darts through its own eternity of light,
Motionless in motion, and the startled

Hare is startled into stone, the fly
Forever golden in the flickering glance
Of leafy sunlight that still holds it. I

Know you, goddess, and your caves that answer
Ocean's confused voices with a voice:
Your poplars where the storms are turned to dances;

Arms where the heart is turned. You give the choice
To hold forever what forever passes,
To hide from what will pass, forever. Moist,

Moist are your well - stones, goddess, cool your grasses!
And she -- she is a woman with that fault
Of change that will be death in her at last!

Nevertheless I long for the cold, salt,
Restless, contending sea and for the island
Where the grass dies and the seasons alter:

Where that one wears the sunlight for a while.”

Archibald MacLeish (1892 - 1982)

Calypso And Odysseus
by Sir William Russell Flint (1880 - 1969)

Anne Sexton makes no allusion to The Odyssey, yet her words in this poem could just as easily spring from the resigned heart of Calypso as from a stoic modern heroine. She understands the rationale, the choice, "the call":

For My Lover, Returning To His Wife

She is all there.
She was melted carefully down for you
and cast up from your childhood,
cast up from your one hundred favourite aggies.

She has always been there, my darling.
She is, in fact, exquisite.
Fireworks in the dull middle of February
and as real as a cast-iron pot.

Let's face it, I have been momentary.
A luxury. A bright red sloop in the harbor.
My hair rising like smoke from the car window.
Littleneck clams out of season.

She is more than that. She is your have to have,
has grown you your practical your tropical growth.
This is not an experiment. She is all harmony.
She sees to oars and oarlocks for the dinghy,

has placed wild flowers at the window at breakfast,
sat by the potter's wheel at midday,
set forth three children under the moon,
three cherubs drawn by Michelangelo,

done this with her legs spread out
in the terrible months in the chapel.
If you glance up, the children are there
like delicate balloons resting on the ceiling.

She has also carried each one down the hall
after supper, their heads privately bent,
two legs protesting, person to person
her face flushed with a song and their little sleep.

I give you back your heart.
I give you permission —

for the fuse inside her, throbbing
angrily in the dirt, for the bitch in her
and the burying of her wound —
for the burying of her small red wound alive —

for the pale flickering flare under her ribs,
for the drunken sailor who waits in her left pulse,
for the mother's knee, for the stockings,
for the garter belt, for the call —

the curious call
when you will burrow in arms and breasts
and tug at the orange ribbon in her hair
and answer the call, the curious call.

She is so naked and singular.
She is the sum of yourself and your dream.
Climb her like a monument, step after step.
She is solid.

As for me, I am a watercolor.
I wash off.

Anne Sexton (1928 - 1974)

N. C. Wyeth (1882 - 1945)
Odysseus And Calypso (1929)

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, March 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts ~ Old Letters & Notebooks
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com ~ He Said She Said

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Baan Suan Ampond Residence

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
AMPOND'S GARDEN ~ PARK ~ HOME

~ At the Baan Suan Ampond Residence ~
a few miles from the busy city center of Bangkok, Thailand,
we found a delightful balance between urban and rural,
privacy and company, land and water, relaxation and stimulation.

Perhaps for you too Baan Suan Ampond will be the perfect spot
for gathering with family, enjoying a Thai massage, and
contemplating the wisdom of the Modern Thai philosophers,
all of whom discourage grasping:

Proverbs from Ajahn Chah (1918 - 1992)

"One day some people came to the master and asked:
How can you be happy in a world of such impermanence,
where you cannot protect your loved ones
from harm, illness or death?

The master held up a glass and said:
Someone gave me this glass;
it holds my water admirably,
and it glistens in the sunlight.
I touch it and it rings!

One day the wind may blow it off the shelf,
or my elbow may knock it from the table.
I know this glass is already broken,
so I enjoy it -- incredibly.

When I accept that the glass is already broken,
every minute with it is precious."

"Do not try to become anything.
Do not make yourself into anything.
Do not be a meditator.
Do not become enlightened.
When you sit, let it be.
When you walk, let it be.
Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing.

When sitting in meditation, say,
'That's not my business!'
with every thought that comes by."

"Try to be mindful, and let things take their natural course.
Then your mind will become still in any surroundings,
like a clear forest pool. All kinds of wonderful,
rare animals will come to drink at the pool,
and you will clearly see the nature of all things.
You will see many strange and wonderful things come and go,
but you will be still. This is the happiness of the Buddha."

********************

Proverbs from Buddhadasa (1906 -1993)

"The entire cosmos is a cooperative.
The sun, the moon, and the stars live together as a cooperative.
The same is true for humans and animals, trees, and the Earth.
When we realize that the world
is a mutual, interdependent, cooperative enterprise --
then we can build a noble environment.
If our lives are not based on this truth,
then we shall perish."

"What is the world full of?
It is full of things that arise, persist, and cease.
Grasp and cling to them, and they produce suffering.
Don't grasp and cling to them, and they do not produce suffering.

The practice is to make the non-arising of grasping
and clinging absolute, final, and eternally void,
so that no grasping and clinging can ever return.
Just that is enough. There is nothing else to do."

********************

Proverbs from Ajahn Sumedho (b 1934)

"The problem is grasping the clock.
So what do I do? Let it go, lay it aside --
put it down gently without any kind of aversion.
Then I can pick it up again, see what time it is,
and lay it aside when necessary."

"Of course we can always imagine more perfect conditions,
how it should be ideally, how everyone should behave.
But it is not our task to create an ideal.
It's our task to see how it is,
and to learn from the world as it is.
For the awakening of the heart,
conditions are always good enough."


"Whatever you think you are, that's not what you are."

********************

Many thanks to our wonderful hosts for creating
an environment filled with so much restful beauty!

Mickie & Nick Carriker

Open for Business ~ Give them a call!

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, March 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST ~ You Can Read Anywhere You Go
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Our Favorite Snowman

STUFFED TOYS, ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Snow Family
In case you are not familiar with the good - natured Snowman pictured above (in sextuplicate!) now is the perfect time to beat the midwinter blues and blahs by acquainting yourself with the delightful animated film, including lovely music by Howard Blake, from which these plush toys are derived. Some viewers prefer the original introduction, featuring the artist / author Raymond Briggs; others like the expanded version by David Bowie. I have never understood why The Snowman is not as popular and widely marketed in the USA as it is in England. I would choose it over Frosty the Snowman any day.

How did I come to possess so many? Well, back when I first mentioned the Snowman on my blog, it never occurred to me that this endearing, puffy stuffed toy, one of our all- time favorite book / movie tie - ins, was soon to become an endangered species, even on good old reliable amazon. My friend Barbara recently recalled purchasing a Snowman exactly like these "at CVS a long time ago!" I remember getting some at Kohl's a few years back, and for a good twenty years (1995 - 2015) I ordered numerous Snowmen from amazon to give as baby presents, such as this well - worn, well - loved one for my brother Aaron's grand-daughter Mia.

Over the holidays, Aaron and I were reminiscing
about a charming old poem from favorite childhood:

His Bunny

Poor, grey bunny --
Once you were white,
But Jimmy drags you all around,
And sleeps with you at night.

He drags you to his sandbox,
And hold you in his crib,
And sits you i his highchair
To use you for a bib.

Poor, grey bunny --
With one eye gone -- how sad --
and one ear slightly turned askew,
But, bunny, aren't you glad

That out of all the things he has,
Of every single toy,
You'd get to be the favorite one
Of such a precious boy!

~ by Marilyn Jean Fais

Aaron wrote: "I showed Lindsey [Mia's mom] the copy of 'Poor Grey Bunny' and told her all she had to do was change 'Bunny' to 'Snowman' and 'boy' to 'girl' and that is 100% Mia. She still carries that Snowman with her everywhere she goes!! Lindsey loved the poem (she actually took a picture of it) and doesn't know what they are going to do if Snowman falls apart before Mia finally outgrows him. They've tried switching him out with a newer one, but Mia wants nothing to do with a 'replacement' Snowman."

Lindsey said: "That [collection of Snowmen] is awesome! We bought a replacement when Mia was about one year old just in case she lost the original. She wasn’t interested -- I think it’s the different fabric for the scarf and hat. Can you tell he’s loved?!"

Awwwww! Yes, we sure can!

I love the story of Mia and her "poor, grey Snowman." A number of other friends also share with us from time to time that the Snowman we gave them at some point in the past has become a family favorite. I even sent one to my mom so that she could see what it was that dear little Mia was so attached to, and now she keeps him all year round, propped up right beside her television. Then there was the fun year when three of my sweet hair-dressers all had babies around the same time and all received a Snowman for Christmas for their little ones.

Sadly, around that time, the lovely plush Snowman just started disappearing from the market, so I ordered as many as I could find from ebay; most were imported from England, "new with tags," though a couple of them were slightly worn -- still, better than none. Hopefully, new ones will reappear in the stores in the future, but it did not happen this Christmas. No matter what your age, if you ask me, there is no nicer present than a Snowman book, movie, and toy all wrapped up together!

Shopping Spree ~ 2014

Do You Want to Buy a Snowman?
Yes, I do!
But I just don't know where to get one!

P.S.
You can also buy china figurines
and children's breakfast dishes
from Royal Doulton.
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, February 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com