Thinking and Feeling

Dear Readers,
What is communion? And why do we, "commune" with friends?
On a different topic: I read a newspaper article titled, New York's Nurseries Try a Transplant. It was about a few cool, new nurseries that recently moved to Brooklyn. Last year when I was in San Francisco I found a lovely neighborhood nursery in the Richmond district. It was like visiting a living museum. Today I thought, If I lived in Brooklyn, I would go to a nursery! Here's a link to the newspaper article: New York's Nurseries Try a Transplant

'Pilgrimage' - Jazz Album of the Year?

Album: 'Pilgrimage,' by Michael Brecker
Review by Steve Greenlee, Boston Globe Staff May 23, 2007

. . . No, there is no self-pity here. "Pilgrimage" is sheer exuberance. One gets the feeling Brecker had a lot on his chest, things he wanted to say with this final statement made in the last months of his life. The man knew he was dying. He knew this session would be his final recording. He made it count. He let it all out. He blows us away. Read the whole review - click me!

Native American Life (1753)

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(excerpt from book: The American Pageant, c. 1998)

Benjamin Franklin in a 1753 letter to Peter Collinson commented on the attractiveness of Indian life to Europeans: "When an Indian child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and make one Indian ramble with them, there is no persuading him ever to return. [But] when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners by the Indians, and lived awhile among them, though ransomed by their friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good opportunity of escaping again into the woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them."



photo from http://www.cymbria.ca/reeds.jpg

Education In Antiquity

From book: "Education In Antiquity"

"The historian [H.I. Marrou] seeks to correct an error in perspective: as they appear in our own classical culture the Greeks were primarily poets, philosophers and mathematicians; and when we pay homage to their artistic genius we mean their architecture and sculpture. . . . Our scholars and teachers pay less attention to their music than to their ceramics! And yet they looked upon themselves first and foremost as musicians.

"Greek culture and education were artistic rather than scientific, and Greek art was musical before it became literary and plastic. It was 'the lyre and sprightly dancing and singing' that summed up civilized life for Theognis. As Plato says bluntly: 'Anyone who cannot take his place in a choir (i.e. as both singer and dancer) is not truly educated.'"

A HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN ANTIQUITY, book by H.I. Marrou, Translated by George Lamb - Ch. 4, The "Old" Athenian Education [475 B.C.].
References:
Theognis - I, 791.
Plato - Leg., II, 654ab.

Relevant Quote

"Having a blog is a good way to keep a journal, and to share all the interesting things you find." - Geneva Jones

Verse from Ramayana (verse no. ?)

Listen, my friend, there is another kind of chariot, which brings certain victory. Its wheels are made of strength of mind and patience. Truth and dignity are its firm flagstaff and its flag. Strength and discretion are its two horses. Forgiveness and benevolence are its two reins. Faith in God is its wise charioteer. Absolute contentment is its dagger. Charity is its axe. Knowledge is its bow. Steadfastness is the quiver and self-discipline its arrows. Respect for the learned is its impregnable armor. Listen patiently, O friend, the brave man who has this chariot shall be victorious over the greatest invincible enemy - which is life in this world.