A Little Too Much Perhaps

Office Christmas party circa 1960

"What I don't like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day." -Phyllis Diller

A Blossoming Soul

“Each flower is a soul blossoming out to nature.”– Gerard de Nerval

A Season of Love

"From home to home,

and heart to heart, from one place to another

The warmth and joy of Christmas,

brings us closer to each other." Emily Matthews

Decisions, Decisions

When someone makes a decision,
he is really diving into a strong current
that will carry him to places he had

never dreamed of when he first made the decision."

-From the Alchemist by Paulo
Coelho

God's Grace

"The world is the wheel of God, turning around
And around with all living creatures upon its rim.

The world is the river of God,
Flowing from Him and back to Him."
-Shvetashvatava Upanishad, translated by Eknath Easwaran

My Sister, My Best Friend

Madison , Wisconsin May 2009

Happy Birthday to my sister Jocelyn !

"For there is no friend like a sister
in calm or stormy weather
to cheer one on the tedious way,
to fetch if one goes astray,
to lift one if one totters down,
to strengthen whilst one stands."
-Rossetti

In Wanting Change

"Want the change. Be inspired by the flame

where everything shines as it disappears.

The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much

as the curve of the body as it turns away.

What locks itself in sameness has congealed.

Is it safer to be gray and numb?

What turns hard becomes rigid

and is easily shattered.

"Pour yourself out like a fountain.

Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking

finishes often at the start,

and, with ending, begins.

Every happiness is the child of a separation

it did not think it could survive.

And Daphne,

becoming a laurel,

dares you to become the wind."

-Rainer Maria Rilke, In Praise of Mortality
The Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XII