Echoes in a Hollow Space

Random quote of the day:

“The descent beckons
As the ascent beckoned.”

—William Carlos Williams, “The Descent”



Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Desus and Mero, Beyoncé, or the Marine Corps Marching Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Random quote of the day:

“Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.”

—Sir Winston Churchill, “Painting as a Pastime,” Thoughts and Adventures

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Heard on the radio of the day:

(1) One of the local public radio stations is having a pledge drive, interspersing bits of NPR amidst flogging the audience for money. The morning flogger is an annoyingly perky woman who doesn't always think too hard about what she's putting out on the air. When they came back from a story about the trapped coal miners in Utah, she'd moderated her perkiness to a somber tone, speaking about the tragedy of those men being trapped and needing rescue. Still in the somber tone, she said, "And we here at Radio Station X are trapped and need rescuing, too..."

(2) During the drive time the other night, to avoid the woman who does the flogging in the evening—a dreadfully serious, lecturing creature—I turned to another public radio station, KUSC, our one classical venue in L.A. It was a blessed moment amidst the rancor of the traffic because they were playing, The Lark Ascending, one of my favorites. Transcendent. I felt so much better as the final ephemeral notes faded off. Rich Caparella, the host, is a man who understands quite well what he's putting out on the air. He has one of those dreamy creamy classical music station voices, always so calm, erudite, and mellifluous. In that dreamy creamy voice, he announced, "That was The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughn Williams. An anti-road rage offering. Now that it's over, feel free to go back to driving like complete idiots."

Random quote of the day:

"I don't need time. What I need is a deadline."

—Duke Ellington


This is certainly true about me. It was true in school, and one of the things my employers have always appreciated about me was that I'm good at nailing deadlines. Unfortunately, I'm not so good at nailing self-imposed deadlines. It's as if my psyche is saying, "Her? You don't really have to take her seriously."

An older poem, but something that's been on my mind a lot lately.


The Descent to Human

The soul descends, the Kabbalah says:
the Tree of Life has roots in Heaven
while the branches hang like a willow bends
trailing green into the torrent of living.
In growing down, the lessons flower,
experience buds on each new limb,
and with this learning, bud on bud,
we know what it is to be truly human.

The soul descends, the Kabbalah says.
It does not rise on angel’s wings
hoary with light and tipped with music,
but wallows below in the muck and the mire.
In human necessity, our virtue grows:
transcendence is claimed only at bedrock.
In being ourselves, both dark and light,
in humanity, and humility, we ascend again.


—PJ Thompson