This FWA hits even closer to home than usual

When Dante was nine years old, long before he became one of Italy’s supreme poets, he fell in love with Beatrice, an eight-year-old girl he met at a May Day party. They never had a close relationship. In the years after their initial encounter, they met infrequently, and both eventually married other people. But Beatrice [...]

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Deep inside your own heart

It’s a pity, a gentleman in refined retirement composing poetry:
He models his work on the classic verse of China,
And his poems are elegant, full of fine phrases.
But if you don’t write of things deep inside your own heart,
What’s the use of churning out so many words?
–Ryoukan, translated by John Stevens
I’ve always been a good writer.  [...]

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Report from the trenches

Very busy at work today–tasks left over from yesterday plus a new shipment to process.  To quote my boss, “YUCK!”
On the plus side, I have a copy of Rilke’s Duino Elegies, as translated by Edward Snow, and three pre-programmed Christmas stations on Pandora.  I was amazed by Rilke’s New Poems and wowed by his Sonnets to [...]

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Tom’s hermit shack and webcam

On this day in 1968, Thomas Merton, monk and writer, died while attending a conference of Buddhist and Christian monastics in Bangkok.  He was apparently electrocuted by contact with a standing floor fan, possibly while still wet from a shower.  Having read many of Merton’s letters and all seven volumes of his published letters, I [...]

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Comfort, if not quite joy

This was the morning that always comes upon me this time of year: The morning when I feel I just can’t face the world and its demands of me without the consolation of hearing A Charlie Brown Christmas before I go out.  I played twice through Vince Guaraldi’s priceless score as I ate some yogurt, [...]

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Words of good counsel

I came back from lunch to find this entry on Livejournal from Feri witch Thorn Coyle:
Note to Self:
Do not believe anything – even personal revelation – that you have not brought into your practice.
Do not believe anything – even sacred text – that you have not brought into your practice.
Practice changes us. Practice gives us [...]

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Links to delight and enlighten you

From author Brendan Myers, “How to fight bad books“, specifically bad books about the ancient Celts, their druids, and their religions.
From Havi Brooks, habits educator (and her partner Selma the duck), a wonderful series of blog posts on blogging.  (I’ve linked to the most recent post as of today, which contains links to the earlier [...]

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Hoeing your own acre

Earlier this week I read a new novel by an author whom I’ve read with pleasure for about twenty years or so.  I haven’t read all of her books in that time, but I’ve read a representative sample, and I enjoy her approach to high fantasy, her lyrical prose, her way of grounding her characters [...]

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The urban druid is cranky today

I have nothing positive to say today, and I make it my policy in blogging not to say anything if I can’t say anything positive.  (Being tired and dispirited is one thing; being actively bitchy is another.)  So instead I’m going to ask my kind readers a favor:
Look at my blogroll, and recommend to me [...]

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A little improvisation

I’m improvising a little soup to eat before I go out for an evening choir rehearsal: a can of mixed vegetables, some beef bouillon cubes, a handful of rice, and some spices.  I don’t know how good it will be, but it will be hot, reasonably nourishing, and slightly creative.  Thus this post.
I understand there [...]

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