relative to the Korean coup attempt and our future…

Fear is the primary force upholding structures of domination. It promotes the desire for separation, the desire not to be known. When we are taught that safety lies always with sameness, then difference, of any kind, will appear as a threat. When we choose to love we choose to move against fear—against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect—to find ourselves in the other. (bell hooks, All About Love)

December 3, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson

may we have similar courage if/when the time comes…

The South Korean people reacted immediately. Reporting from Seoul, John Yoon of the New York Times recounted the story of a real estate agent who watched President Yoon’s speech, got in his car, and drove for an hour to get to the National Assembly. The man told journalist Yoon, “I thought, ‘The end has come,’ so I came out. The president of a country has exerted his power by force, and its people have come out to protest that. We have to remove him from power from this point on. He’s in a position where he has to come down.”

Yesterday i was grateful for breakfast with KL and my yoga practice.

Today i am looking forward to restorative pilates with my wife and TB.

Tonight’s Christmas movie… Meet Me in St. Louis…

Yesterday i was grateful for my yoga practice.

Today i am looking forward to coffee with KL.

  • Lost at Christmas
  • Polar Express
  • Spirited

My first three Christmas movies!

Yesterday I was grateful for football with my brother and watching Polar Express with my wife.

Today i am looking forward to returning to my yoga practice…

The first signs of resistance in my city…

Construction fencing with the words Women, We, Unite, Society painted in white, other words painted in red. Quotes from historic Americans.

Words painted on construction fencing in an unpunctuated and unspaced sentence. “WOMEN DESERVE EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK”

Words painted on construction fencing. “THE ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FEAR IS FEAR ITSELF”

Construction fencing with words painted on it. “THE UNITED STATES IS NOT A NATION TO WHICH PEACE IS A NECESSITY”

Words painted on construction fencing. “THE HAPPINESS OF SOCIETY IS THE END OF GOVT”

from this morning’s walk…

Construction excavation with ladder in the excavation pit, leaning against a building, silhouette of house in the distance.

Entry door with glass light and illumination from within the building. Construction dust cloth illuminated by the light from the door.

Yellow shopping cart to the right of the front of Smokers Mecca storefront.

Odds and ends from yesterday…

Vertical landscape with street in foreground, tree, trash can and picnic table in middle ground, building and mountain in distance.

Mirror silver combat boots in shop window.

Plastic drink bottle sitting at edge of excavation trench. Scene illuminated by streetlights.

Christmas decorations from yesterday…

Giant inflatable snowman and disco mirror ball in shop window.

Plastic illuminated Santa at store entrance.

Pile of mirror ball ornaments in a shop window.

Yesterday i was grateful for sharing turkey with my cousin and her beautiful family.

Today i am looking forward to not having to drive anywhere!

This seems particularly relevant to the present moment in history…

Yesterday i was grateful for sharing turkey sandwiches and spending time with my brother and sister in law, nieces, nephew, niece significant others and Suede, a sweet and talkative lab mix.

Today i am looking forward to sharing the fourth of our four Thanksgivings with my cousin, her children and grandchildren.

From this morning…

Side of building with bay window in early morning. Building with high arch entry beyond.

Frost on a car…

Closeup of car hood and window with feathery frost pattern.

Plastic Santa…

Plastic Santa in a shop window.

… maybe i’m projecting, but he looks a little concerned…

Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. (Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian)

Religion takes seriously both the thisness of the individual, at one extreme of the scale, and the fate of the cosmos at the other, and shows them to be part of one whole. It is the absence of this integrative perspective that Dewey called the ‘deepest problem of modern life’. (Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things)

November 27, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson

Thanksgiving became a thing during The Civil War… it is worth reading HCR’s post for context… my hope is that we can have the argument more peacefully this time around…

i wish everyone celebrating an American Thanksgiving a happy one filled with family… i wish everyone else things you can be grateful for throughout the day…

Yesterday i was grateful for time spent reading with Holly.

Today i am looking forward to thanksgiving with my brother and sister in law.

The Christmas mood growing…

Red Christmas sweater in a shop window.

Christmas displays in a shop window.

Christmas wreath hanging on a utility pole. Mountain and crescent moon beyond.

In other words, the fact that we in the US care so much about money and possessions, and have collectively accumulated such staggering material wealth—these are indicators that something is very wrong. They speak to how diminished our lives are in very important respects, and how disconnected we have become from the fundamental wealth of ourselves and the world. (Jeff Golden, Reclaiming the Sacred)

As John Muir put it: No dogma taught by the present civilization seems to form so insuperable an obstacle in the way of a right understanding of the relations which culture sustains to wildness as that which regards the world as made especially for the uses of man. Every animal, plant, and crystal controverts it in the plainest terms. Yet it is taught from century to century as something ever new and precious, and in the resulting darkness the enormous conceit is allowed to go unchallenged. (Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things)