QUIETNESS IN WAITING

2 Tough and Crazy people get together and consider life through the Oracle of the Animated Gif. They contemplate The quietness of the evening before a birthday. The Quietness of thinking over 59 years. They consider separately before sleeping together.

Stand Tall and Proud
Sink your roots deeply into the Earth
Reflect the light of a greater source
Think long term
Go out on a limb
Remember your place among all living beings
Embrace with joy the changing seasons
For each yields its own abundance
The Energy and Birth of Spring
The Growth and Contentment of Summer
The Wisdom to let go of leaves in the Fall
The Rest and Quiet Renewal of Winter
- Ilan Shamir, Advice From a Tree

Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye, clear. What we need is here.
Wendell Berry

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
Helen Keller

TURNING 59and OTHER RANDOM 50s

2 Tough and Crazy people get together and consider life through the Oracle of the Animated Gif. They contemplate TURNING 59. He is turning 59 in 2008. April 18. Born in 1949. That’s heading into 60 years of age and this is the REHEARSAL. He is a fulltime Muso PhD Student at 59. They both have long hair and the original dropping out seems to be upon them again.

So let’s make a deal together
We’ll use the same party line
You’re a smidgin’ over 21 (You’re a little under 21)
I’m a tad over 39 (I’m not quite 39)

And bringing Granny into the ruse

I heard about your mother’s deal
I’ll go along with it, that’s fine
Now, raise your arm and swear this oath
“My Grandma’s 59″

For all the advances in medicine, there is still no cure for the common birthday.

William Shakespeare
Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity?

Lewis Carroll
There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents and only one for birthday presents, you know.

Enough of all these insults
I do hope you realize
How highly you’re respected
How kind you are, and wise

The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.

Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young.

Just because you’re 59,
Don’t despair, oh no
Overnight you won’t discover
You’ve lost your get up and go.
Nor will you become all wrinkled,
Nor ache from head to toe.
So even though you’re ripening
Don’t regard it as a blow,
You won’t suddenly look decrepit ….

…Cos that happened long ago!!

DEVOTION

2 Tough and Crazy people get together and consider life through the Oracle of the Animated Gif. They contemplate DEVOTION.

“Attention is the beginning of devotion.”
- Mary Oliver

Everybody likes to go their own way–to choose their own time and manner of devotion.
Jane Austen

Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need. The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible. Exceptions only confirm this rule, proving that failure is occasioned by a too feeble faith.

-Mary Baker Eddy

I pledge devotion to the earth, our one and only home,
and to the life this earth sustains;
one nation, one spirit indivisible,
with freedom and fulfillment for all.
- Bruce Hagen, New Pledge of Allegiance, 1983

There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman; it’s a thing that no married man knows anything about.

The library is not a shrine for the worship of books. It is not a temple where literary incense must be burned or where one’s devotion to the bound book is expressed in ritual. A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas – a place where history comes to life. ~Norman Cousins

Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives and the sincerest part of our devotion. ~Jonathan Swift

DEVOTION

The devotion to God as seen in every religion is divided into two parts: the devotion which works through forms and ceremonies and through words, and that which works through love.
(Notes from a lecture Lessons on Bhakti yoga)

“In The Arena”

The credit in life goes not to the critic who stands on the sideline and points out where the strong stumble. But rather, the real credit in life goes to the person who’s actually in the arena. Who’s face do sweat and dust mar. Who knows great enthusiasm and great devotion and learns to spend himself or herself at a worthy cause. If they win, they know the thrill of great achievement, and if they lose, at least they lose while daring greatly so that their place in life will never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Paraphrased from Theodore Roosevelt

STARTING UP

2 Tough and Crazy people get together and consider life through the Oracle of the Animated Gif. They contemplate STARTING THINGS. THE Star Wagon has had 2 STARTER motors this year. Both conked out. It took the hammer and stick to get started and a two person combination. Today Lizzy did SUNSHINE AUTO ELECTRICS down in Industry Drive Tweed Heads South and they say the Starter Motor in there now will keep right on STARTING.

Out on the Front Porch He is putting the STICKY GRASS PUDDING artwork into the CD jackets. This START comes at the long end of an album recording. Over 12 months in fact. Now the first 20 cds are here in a box Lizzy picked up from Tumbulgum Birdwing Cafe – and PASPALUM is ready to LAUNCH IT. OMigod says She. Omigod. This could be the START of something strange.

Most of the critical things in life, which become
the starting points for human destiny, are little things.
- R. Smith

A year from now you may wish you had started today.
- Karen Lamb

The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sun-burned hands I used to hold
Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall.
Johnny Mercer
Much-recorded song Autumn Leaves. Originally a French song Les Feuilles Mortes with lyrics by poet Jacques Prevért.

Arriving at one point is the starting point to another.
John Dewey

Think Big Start Small

I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.

“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one. Mark Twain