Happy Happy Birthday @triciact
You are a delight and a joy! I would love a virtual birthday party with you and Sue and the tall Indian too.
Oh wait, did I just suggest a seance?
Music to get us through...
Happy Birthday tune for these times:
@deetoo and @michele-b
Thank you both! How sweet of you to remember! Well we're all honorary Irish today if we're wearing the green lol HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!
?☘️
My heartfelt thanks to all of you beautiful souls! I'm so blessed to have you dear friends!
HUGS xoxox
Tricia
HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY TO EVERYONE! ?☘️
May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.
and a beautiful rendition of Danny Boy:
TriciaCT,
And now, a witty birthday poem.
May you eat too much cake
That you didn't bake.
The End.
Have a GREAT day! Happy Birthday!!
So, I live and work in Plymouth, MA (as in the Mayflower and the first Thanksgiving). I guess it's appropriate, then, that while I was driving home from work on Thursday, I screeched to a halt on a state highway because a group of wild turkeys (a "rafter") was taking it's sweet time to cross the road. Several cars backed up behind me, and six cars backed up going in the opposite direction. There were no chicks in the group, so it wasn't an exact Make Way for Ducklings scenario. But it was still charming. I smiled the rest of the drive home.
I've been thinking about how these next few months are going to be a time when human society is forced to slow down. Thinking back on the turkeys, they seemed to be saying with their body language "You humans are so crazy, rushing around all the time. Why don't you stop and take a look around for once." The turkeys were trying to teach me and my fellow motorists a lesson ? .
Here's a photo I took from my car.
@coyote, what a sweet story and picture! Thank you for sharing that with us.
I had something similar occur about a year ago. I was stopped at a very busy 4-way intersection, the light turned green for us to go, and out of nowhere, a mother goose with her goslings in tow, s-l-o-w-l-y meandered diagonally across the intersection. What struck me were the number of big trucks patiently waiting to proceed. Things became very quiet and it felt like time stood still. It felt like a holy and joyous moment. I loved it.
LOCKDOWN by Fr. Richard Hendric
Yes there is fear.
Yes there is isolation.
Yes there is panic buying.
Yes there is sickness.
Yes there is even death.
But,
They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise
You can hear the birds again.
They say that after just a few weeks of quiet
The sky is no longer thick with fumes
But blue and grey and clear.
They say that in the streets of Assisi
People are singing to each other
across the empty squares,
keeping their windows open
so that those who are alone
may hear the sounds of family around them.
They say that a hotel in the West of Ireland
Is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound.
Today a young woman I know
is busy spreading fliers with her number
through the neighbourhood
So that the elders may have someone to call on.
Today Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples
are preparing to welcome
and shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary
All over the world people are slowing down and reflecting
All over the world people are looking at their neighbours in a new way
All over the world people are waking up to a new reality
To how big we really are.
To how little control we really have.
To what really matters.
To Love.
So we pray and we remember that
Yes there is fear.
But there does not have to be hate.
Yes there is isolation.
But there does not have to be loneliness.
Yes there is panic buying.
But there does not have to be meanness.
Yes there is sickness.
But there does not have to be disease of the soul
Yes there is even death.
But there can always be a rebirth of love.
Wake to the choices you make as to how to live now.
Today, breathe.
Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic
The birds are singing again
The sky is clearing,
Spring is coming,
And we are always encompassed by Love.
Open the windows of your soul
And though you may not be able
to touch across the empty square,
Sing.Fr. Richard Hendrick, OFM
March 13th 2020
For those who have littles, or know those who do, an old friend of ours is posting videos of kids' songs:
(he's based in NYC)
The writers at the Dark Mountain Project are starting to put out some very poignant pieces about the Covid-19 pandemic. The essay "Outbreak," from the British writer Charlotte du Cann had me in goosebumps. Its a 20-30 minute read. I've pulled out the most powerful quotes here in order to sketch the essay's narrative arc:
"In a time when the story falters, the golden story of human promise and progress, the myth reveals itself, like broken bones in a midden...one myth stands steadily and quietly in the wings. Not an epic tale of gods, but the story of a human girl and her struggle with the alchemical forces of love, beauty and justice. Her name is Psyche, which means soul or butterfly, the creature that transforms itself from caterpillar to imago in the hermetic space of a cocoon. Having resisted every warning and admonishment to transform and change our ways, we are now, as a collective, being forced into a cocoon ourselves, in lockdowns and self-isolation, to do the work we should have done generations ago.
"The fracture point is what many of us have been searching for in these last years. Because, as every storyteller knows, the crack reveals everything that needs to be told: the flaw in the character that can bring down whole kingdoms, the chink in the prison wall that speaks of liberty, the wake up call to a cruel fairytale that has enthralled you and generations before you. And maybe the crack is, as Buckminster Fuller once described, the moment the chick, struggling for space as its food runs out, catches a glimpse of blue sky beyond the shell – and not apocalypse at all.
"May you have the courage to jump the fire. May you disobey your forefathers and open the box. May all your helpers come in time. May we all sing before the storm as it advances, as Eros approaches us with his great wings. May we have loved this Earth and each other enough for this not to be the end."
Oh wow oh wow oh wow!
Mystical and Magical and really weaves a beautifully poignant modern day myth intertwined with stories from the past.
Beautiful really beautiful. Thank you so much for bringing this into our awareness with every meaning of that word.
???
Chicagoans spread hope with a city-wide sing-along of Bon Jovi's 'Livin' On A Prayer'
Under stay-at-home orders amid the coronavirus outbreak, people scattered throughout the Chicago metro area belted out Bon Jovi's "Livin' On A Prayer" at 7 p.m. Saturday night, standing at windows, in yards and on balconies in freezing weather. Chicagoans shared dozens of videos capturing the citywide sing-along on social media.
My husband said he heard this song during a dream last night. Even his subconscious has a sense of humor, apparently:
Bayo Akomolafe's book, These Wilds Beyond Our Fences: Letters to my Daughter on Humanity's Search for Home, is being offered for free in digital format by North Atlantic Books until Friday. Akomolafe's trademark aphorism, "The times are urgent, so let us slow down," originated years before the COVID-19 pandemic. He, like Joanna Macy and Charles Eisenstein, is a latter-day visionary, and his prose are worth reading in this moment. Here's the link to the free download option:
https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/product-category/free-ebooks/
The company I work for helped Lady Gaga get the ONE WORLD TOGETHER AT HOME CONCERT together. It's a global concert and digital special to support front line healthcare workers and the WHO.
DATE: APRIL 18, 2020 at 8pmET USA.