United Nations Conference on Climate Change

This week our world leaders will come together to talk about climate change. They will talk about the policy and the science and make agreements they alone cannot keep. They will provide sound reasoning and a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, from all the nations of the world.

But who has time for these grand ideas in our lives? Climate change is hard to grasp in general and especially when we are occupied with the tasks of everyday life like raising children, fighting traffic, and working. The destruction of the planet won’t happen for at least another ten years so we can think about it later, after getting the kids to school, Continue reading “United Nations Conference on Climate Change”

Happy Spring

It’s a beautiful morning and I’ve seen so many pictures of wildflowers on Facebook lately. They help me remember there are life and death cycles all around us and the idea of sustained uncontrolled growth is a myth. These life death cycles are the natural order and our safety actually lies in our embracing these cycles rather than resisting. Lucretius, the Roman poet and philosopher, said conquer your fears, accept the fact that you and all things you encounter are transitory and embrace the beauty and pleasure of the world. There really is no escape from the constant making and unmaking and remaking of forms. I know this and yet I always forget. I am so much happier when I can sit back and enjoy the beauty and embrace the transitory.

My Definition of Art……from James Joyce

I have a quote that I wrote down many, many years ago and it has stayed true to how I feel and what I think art and any form of expression for that matter is about. It is from the book The Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce.

..to speak of these things and to try to understand their nature, and, having understood it, to try slowly and humbly and constantly to express, to press out again, from the gross earth or what it brings forth, from sound and shape and color which are the prison gates of our soul, an image of the beauty we have come to understand – that is art.

So, I will be slowly and humbly expressing an image of the beauty I have come to understand. After all isn’t all true understanding beautiful?

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