Category Archives: Uncategorized

Well, ain’t that the truth? We start young, on the level of grass and Earth. Microcosms and macrocosms opening richly to our alternately awakening/slumbering consciousness. That Wordsworthian closeness to Nature, Blakean Innocence, and a simple direct connection with all the … Continue reading →

With my grandson Sunday–he wanted to see “Raccoon Nation” again, a program I had recorded on the PVR on spec for him. He likes raccoons–he loves his retro Fisher-Price raccoon pull-toy–but who knew how much? He pointed me to the … Continue reading →

“And many are the dead men too silent to be real”–Gordon Lightfoot, “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” Lightfoot speaks of the many nameless workers who gave their lives to forge the Canadian Dream of the 1870s and 1880s which united this country. … Continue reading →

“It’s your world so live in it.”–Johnny Clegg, “Cruel, Crazy Beautiful World” There are the wild, sublime places where one can be free and wild in response to a greatness of beauty and spirit, places vastly exceeding a human life, … Continue reading →

(the spirit of South Africa returned to Edmonton Saturday) “You are the rolling ocean You are the mighty sea You are the breath that brings each new day to me You are what you are, you are You are what … Continue reading →

“If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousands … Continue reading →

It is in our dreams that we mostly find ourselves and one another.

Then (1871-72) Middlemarch–ending and book conclusion: “Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no … Continue reading →

Unconventional individual personal choices abound in George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Dorothea refuses to limited by her dead husband’s will and gives up her estate to marry Ladislaw. Ladislaw refuses Bulstrode’s (atonement) money because of the corrupt source, much as Mr. Garth refuses … Continue reading →

In the end, reading a great novel like Middlemarch or watching a Shakespeare tragedy for the memorable characters we desire to see and deepl/innerly need, we are back to the simple fact of presence–the individual presences of certain characters, much … Continue reading →