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According to the book Legal Lunacy  by author Sheryl-Lindsell Roberts, it’s against the law for a girl to call a guy for a date in Dyersburg, Tennessee. They obviously never heard of Sadie Hawkins Day.

Some interesting events have taken place on this day in history. According to the 1984 edition of The Daily Planet Almanac. “*1968: Discovery of Pulsars announced (Cambridge, England)

*1968: Presidential Commission recommends massive effort to end bitterness and destruction from racial disorders in cities. Suggests it might cost more to do this than the Vietnam War…”

In the future, Shrove Tuesday on February 29th, 2028, and Ash Wednesday on February 29th, 2096.

According to an article by Alice Cary in the 2008 edition of The Old Farmer’s Almanac, “About 4 million people (including 22,500 Canadians) living today were born on February 29th.” It seems that “in the past, hospitals sometimes recorded either February 28 or March 1 on babies’ birth certificates, in an attempt to avoid ‘confusion.’”

We’ve heard the unusual situation considering those born on February 29th. In an article on February 28th in the Toronto Star by Daphne Gordon, she mentions a man, born on February 29th in 1944, who today will be celebrating his 16th birthday. Those born on February 29th are called ‘leaplings’. One very famous person was Gioacchino Rossini born in 1792.

Alice Cary in the 2008 edition of The Old Farmer’s Almanac wrote: “Computer programs have occasionally failed to recognize February 29th as a birthday.” There is a family in Norway, according to her article, that has three children born on February 29. They’re in the record books for the ‘most siblings born on Leap Day.” 

Alice Cary also tells us that besides Sadie Hawkins’ Day, February 29th was also called ‘The Ladies’ Privilege’, and ‘Bachelor’s Day’.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, writing in Book One of Aurora Leigh, suggests “God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, / And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, / A gauntlet with a gift in it”. Something to remember on Sadie Hawkins Day, as well as on every other day of the year…

***

Don Jackson

“We sat within the farm-house old, / Whose windows, looking o’er the bay, / Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold / An easy entrance, night and day.

“Not far away we saw the port, / The strange, old-fashioned, silent town, / The lighthouse, the dismantled fort, / The wooden houses, quaint and brown.

“We sat and talked until the night, / Descending, filled the little room; / Our faces faded from the sight, / Our voices only, broke the gloom.

“We spake of many a vanished scene, / Of what we once had thought and said, / Of what had been, and might have been, / And who was changed, and who was dead;

“And all that fills the hearts of friends, / When first they feel, with secret pain, / Their lives thenceforth have separate ends, / And never can be one again;

“The first slight swerving of the heart, / That words are powerless to express, / And leave it still unsaid in part, / Or say it in too great excess.

“The very tones in which we spake / Had something strange, I could but mark; / The leaves of memory seemed to make / A mournful rustling in the dark.

“Oft died the words upon our lips, / As suddenly, from out the fire / Built of the wreck of stranded ships, / The flames would leap and then expire.

“And, as their splendor flashed and failed, / We thought of wrecks upon the main, / Of ships dismasted, that were hailed / And sent no answer back again.

“The windows, rattling in their frames, / The ocean, roaring up the beach, /The gusty blast, the bickering flames, / All mingled vaguely in our speech;

“Until they made themselves a part / Of fancies floating through the brain, / The long-lost ventures of the heart, / That send no answers back again.

“O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned! / They were indeed too much akin, / The drift-wood fire without that burned, / The thoughts that burned and glowed within.” — The Fire of Drift-wood: Devereaux Farm, Near Marblehead by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

One last fire, slowly dying in the grate. A warm glow still takes the chill from the air and from the lone figure sitting directly in front of the hearth.

The words of Yeats….”When you are old and grey and full of sleep, / And nodding by the fire, take down this book, / And slowly read, and dream of the soft look / Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

“How many loved your moments of glad grace, / And loved your beauty with love false or true, / But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, / And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

“And bending down beside the glowing bars, / Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled / And paced upon the mountains overhead / And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.”

There are faces in the fire tonight..

***

Don Jackson

“Ice is the silent language of the peak / And fire the silent language of the star.” An excerpt from Sonnet 10 of And In The Human Heart by Conrad Aiken.

I don’t have a large fireplace at home but it serves our purposes. It is situated in our family room and it provides a glow to warm body and soul on nights like these. So many new homes today are built with gas fireplaces, but mine in is a wood-burning fireplace. I’ve always liked the idea of real wood burning on the grate. I’m not alone…

“My desire is to sit without emotion, hope or aim in the loved presence of my cottage fire.” A quote from William Wordsworth.

Longfellow wrote: “There is no fireside, howsoe’er defended, / But has one vacant chair.”

“A blazing hearth was the soul of a room; for the average householder, it was the cornerstone of domestic comfort.” Interior designer Robin Guild in The Victorian House Book published by Rizzoli.

Peter Steinhart writing in the January 1985 issue of Audubon quoted religious scholar David M. Knipe, author of the book In The Image Of Fire as saying: “Hearthless homes have no ‘centre,’ no focus, and they provide nothing to gaze into for that reverie which is essential to every human.” But not all homes have fireplaces. If you live in an apartment or condo, you may not be able to have a fireplace.

When I first moved to Montreal in the late 1970s, the first condo I lived in had a fireplace. I was in a ground floor corner unit right over the garage door. That first winter I realized why these units had the luxury of a fireplace; the heating in the building was not sufficient to keep the units warm. One very cold winter’s night, a night very much like tonight, the door jammed open below me. It felt like someone had left the freezer door open onto my unit. I huddled in front of a roaring fire and kept warm throughout that long night. From that point on, I wanted to make sure there was a wood-burning fireplace in whatever place I called home.

In years past, I have shared a cord of wood with a neighbor on our street. We had just enough wood left over from last winter to get us to this point in February. As it said in the 1979 edition of the Old Farmer’s Almanac, you should have half of your wood and half of your hay left by February, in order to make it safely through the rest of the winter. I must be in trouble this year–I forgot the hay…

If you don’t have a fireplace, I thought I might share the light from mine with you on this cold winter’s night… Enjoy!

***

Don Jackson

On my bike rides on country roads north of the city, I’ve often come across the foundations of old farm buildings. The structures themselves obviously came down years ago. All that remains today are the cellar holes. I imagine them inhabited by all kinds of creatures, but not Hobbits. If there is one thing that J. R. R. Tolkien taught us about Hobbit-holes, it is the fact that his diminutive inhabitants of the Shire enjoyed their many comforts in their burrows in the sides of hills.

You might want to read yesterday’s blog for a writing that specifically refers to tonight’s radio show. It was, in a sense, an autobiography in five short chapters written by Portia Nelson. It’s a fascinating read and directly relates to tonight’s theme about potholes and ruts.

Some years back, my wife and I decided that our small pre-form pond was just too small for the koi and goldfish. They seemed to be growing too large for their environment. All winter long, as they hibernated in the deepest part of the small pond, I thought about how I might make it larger. I never truly realized the scope of the work.

As I mention in tonight’s radio program, I waited until most of the frost was up and out of the ground before I began the muddy work. My wife and I traced the outline of the pond’s new dimensions on the ground with a long piece of rope. It acted as a guide for me, and then, armed with a shovel, I began to dig a hole…

The ground was soft and still very wet from the snow melt, so getting through the sod wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. It wasn’t a job that would be accomplished in one day, though. In fact, it took me quite a few days over the course of a week or so. Part of the problem that I hadn’t anticipated was the junk in the ground left behind by the original builder of the house. You might wonder what “some” house builders do with the debris left behind from the construction of your home. I can tell you that some of it might be buried on your property. That certainly was the case with mine. With the tip of my shovel, I hit small chunks of discarded lumber, cut ends of roof shingles and pieces of pipe. Any large stones found while digging the foundation were removed and buried in back of the house. You never know what “buried treasure” you will find until you begin to dig a hole in the ground…

The earth that was removed was used to top up our flower beds. We put the cut pieces of sod into our backyard composter. My son was a huge help even though he was very young at the time. He was right there beside me carrying small shovelfuls of dirt up and out of the pit that was slowly getting deeper. I wanted to ensure that the bowl I was carving out would be almost five feet deep. This was to ensure that the fish would have the depth needed to safely survive the elements during our long, harsh winters.

I carved out shelves of varying depths on the exterior walls to hold our pond plants. Some plants require shallow water, while others need to be planted much deeper. When I finally cleared away all the earth beside the old pre-form, I then had to remove the fish and place them into a small wading pool. That was so that I could remove the old pre-form. We then had the liner cut to suit the size of our hole and then we fitted it into place. Fortunately, we had a very early spring that year, and on the day all this was done, it was warm and sunny. The fish were out of their hibernation cycle and eager to begin feeding and replenishing what was lost over the winter months. When the water warmed up enough, we moved the fish across into their new home. They seemed to be in shock at the size of their new environment. The pond contains about 1,500 gallons of water. It’s not as large as some of the ponds I’ve seen, but it is the perfect size for our property.

We’ve had many enjoyable years with the new pond. If you check back to some of my early blogs, you will see digital photos of it that I posted. It is no longer just a hole in the ground. It is a living, thriving environment. The funny thing is this.. I was out checking on the fish just the other day to see how they are faring this winter. They have all gathered in the hole that once held the original pre-form. It’s almost as if they sense something primal about this area of the pond.

Sydney Smith wrote: “If you choose to represent the various parts in life by holes upon a table, of different shapes–some circular, some triangular, some square, some oblong–and the persons acting these parts by bits of wood of similar shapes, we shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole. The officer and the office, the doer and the thing done seldom fit so exactly that we can say they were almost made for each other.”

One final thought about digging…

Now, the only thing I seem to be accomplishing with a shovel, is moving mounds and mounds of snow…

***

Don Jackson

“You left me, sweet, two legacies,– / A legacy of love / A Heavenly Father would content, / Had He the offer of;

“You left me boundaries of pain / Capacious as the sea, / Between eternity and time, / Your consciousness and me.” –Emily Dickinson from Collected Poems Of Emily Dickinson, published in 1983 by Chatham River Press, a division of Arlington House, Inc.

Outside the building where our studios are located, there is a moving display of stick-people walking. You often see pedestrians in sync with the stick-figures in the electronic display. More often than not,  they fall out of sync when they pay close attention to what’s going on beside them in the display. A sidewalk is what threads a neighborhood together. We learned about boundaries starting with the sidewalk in front of our home, and how far we were allowed to travel along it. In the August 1990 issue of Glamour magazine’s Private Time column was this: “A stoop bridges the boundary between home and the outside world. You’re on your own turf, but with a front-row seat to the drama of the street, or the landscape around you. You’re out-of-doors, but close to the comforts of home.”

From the vantage point of your stoop, veranda or front porch, you can learn a lot about boundaries and also about a sidewalk.

This is called Choices–Author Unknown. It was posted on the Internet sometime back at a site that once featured inspirational writing. If you ever do find out who wrote this, please let me know so that I can give credit where credit is due. “Portia Nelson reports that she has written her autobiography in just five short chapters. It goes like this.

“Chapter One. I walk down the street. There’s a hole in the sidewalk. It is a very deep hole. I fall in. I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.

“Chapter Two. I walk down the same street. There’s a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in–again. I can’t believe I’m in the same place, but it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

“Chapter Three. I walk down the same street. There’s a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it there. I still fall in. It’s a habit, but my eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

“Chapter Four. I walk down the same street. There’s a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

“Chapter Five. I walk down another street.

“What a marvelous progression from a helpless victim of life, to a victim of self, to taking responsibility, to self discipline, to making better choices.” I am not sure about the real sentence structure of this writing or the grammar since it was posted by an anonymous writer.

Have you heard of this term before? It was mentioned in an item from The Baltimore Sun. “Laptopia: A virtual country populated by industrious nomads. [S]tudents, writers, former desk jockeys, all wielding laptops, have taken the workplace–and their cyber playgrounds–with them. The explosive growth of WiFi, short for wireless fidelity, is largely propelling this sociological change. With wireless access to the Internet available in thousands of coffeehouses, airports, libraries, restaurants and other ‘hot spots,’ laptop users worldwide have erased the boundaries that have traditionally separated the spaces in which they live, work and socialize.”–The Baltimore Sun and featured in the Thursday April 29th, 2004 issue of The Globe and Mail’s Social Studies column. I often wonder where you access this blog. I have heard from people who read it in Internet cafes, at home and at work. The Internet has certainly erased boundaries all over the world. 

Breaking down walls, that get erected slowly over time, is something you will want to keep struggling away at, so that they don’t grow so tall that they eventually cut you off completely from one another.

This was another writing posted on a website that featured inspirational writing. Again, it is “Author Unknown.” It is called Portrait Of A Friend. “I can’t give solutions to all life’s problems, doubts or fears. But I can listen to you, and together we will search for the answer. / I can’t change your past with all its heartache and pain, or the future with its untold stories. But I can be there now when you need me to care. / I can’t keep your feet from stumbling. I can only offer my hand that you may grasp it and not fall. / Your joys, triumphs, successes, and happiness are not mine. Yet I can share in your laughter. / Your decisions in life are not mine to make nor to judge. I can only support you, encourage you, and help you when you ask. / I can’t prevent you from falling away from friendship, from your values, from me. I can only pray for you, talk to you, and wait for you. / I can’t give you boundaries which I have determined for you. But I can give you the room to change, the room to grow, room to be yourself. / I can’t keep your heart from breaking or hurting. But I can cry with you and help you pick up the pieces and put them back in place. / I can’t tell you who you are. I can only love you, and be your friend.” –Author Unknown.

***

Don Jackson

“Why is running water such balm to the human spirit? Why do we sleep more soundly beside a waterfall than in the quiet forest? Better even than the rainbow–I think–it represents for us the continuing process of life on our planet. The flow of water is the cycle of fertility renewing itself; it happens only because the sun has been shining, the mists rising, and the rains falling in the distant hills. A deep, human instinct of involvement in the onward flow of life, the cyclical movements of nature, has given us this archetype of flowing water, the sound of it telling us that the world is alive–like the sound of a heart beating beside us in sleep.” An excerpt from On The Edge Of Artistic Visions Of The Shrinking Landscape from Dancing On The Shore by Harold Horwood, that was sent to me via e-mail sometime back by a listener.

“I saw old Autumn in the misty morn / Stand shadowless like silence, listening / To silence.” Stanza 1 from Ode: Autumn by Thomas Hood.

Another writer in Istanbul was listening to the city with his eyes closed, and heard a rose dropped from the hands of a woman passing by. I can’t help but wonder what it must be like to be able to listen that intently, to be able to discern a rose falling from the hands of a passerby.

“Deep in my thoughts, I sit down and listen / To this awesome silence.” An excerpt from The Ruined City by Pao Chao (414-466)(China) translated by C. J. Chen and Michael Bullock, and featured in the Quality Paperback Book Club collection, World Poetry.

There are exercises we can perform to hone this talent.

Frank W. Mann from Robins Reader and featured in the Points To Ponder column of the October 1995 issue of the Reader’s Digest wrote what I think are the instructions.

“An enlightening pastime is to make a list of favorite things that impact the senses. Not only does it provide a challenging exercise for the mind and memory but it sharpens our appreciation of these golden moments in time. For example, one person’s list of ten favorite sounds: a mother talking to her new baby; a distant train whistle; the scrunch of leaves on a bright autumn day; a hound baying in the woods at night; the absolute silence of a mountain lake at sunset; sea gulls crying; a stadium crowd singing the national anthem; a crackling fire on a bitter day; the screech of airplane tires as they touch down; his wife’s voice at morning. Try the exercise for favorite sounds, smells or sights. You may learn something about yourself.”

***

Don Jackson

A newspaper writer described a couple “…in the desert darkness west of Tucson, smiling beatifically at what resembles a drive-in movie screen covered with mirrors. Their faces are bathed in a blue-tinged light. After absorbing concentrated moonbeams for two minutes in silence, they yield their place to other people waiting in line. … Over the past year, an increasing number of people have converged on this lonely patch of private land to submit themselves to intense levels of moonlight. The experience is courtesy of Interstellar Light Applications, a Tucson company that has poured $2 million dollars (U. S.)  into the belief that there is therapeutic value to lunar rays magnified by mirrors. On some nights, as many as 120 people show up.” Dennis Wagner in The Arizona Republic and featured in the Wednesday May 16th, 2007 issue of The Globe and Mail’s Social Studies column. 

I wonder how many people watched the total lunar eclipse in this country last night in total silence? How many, I wonder, were content just to stand there taking in a spectacle we won’t see again until 2010? As I said in last night’s radio program, the ancients were fearful of changes in the sky overhead. They read all kinds of omens in these celestial events. Today, we no longer fear the changing heavens. Instead of relishing the moment, absorbed in our own silent thoughts, we hold eclipse parties. There was certainly a festive atmosphere onboard a military vessel as the light slowly returned to the lunar surface.

Last night’s silence in the north Pacific was shattered when a U. S. Navy vessel fired a missile at a defective, aging spy satellite that was going to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. The powers-that-be decided to take no chances of the possibility of it crashing in a populated area. So, they decided to break it up before re-entry took place. In the vacuum of space, it made as much noise as the shadow that crept across the moon’s landscape. Only in sci-fi movies and TV series, like Star Trek, is there a soundtrack to weapons’ fire and explosions. Space is inherently silent. 

I remember a show that ran at the McLaughlin Planetarium in Toronto many years ago that featured lasers and music. I was relatively new to the radio business at the time and decided to see the show one night after work. The audience was treated to a thrilling spectacle of light and music. I remember the starfield projected overhead giving the impression we were out among the stars. After the show, I had the opportunity to speak with the show’s technician who choreographed the entire experience. It served to pique my interest even more in our own little corner of the Universe.

Back here on earth, there are silences that command out attention..

The French writer, Collette, said: “All of us wince when a rose–falling apart in a tepid room–lets go one of its shell-like petals, and sends it adrift into its own reflection on a smooth, marble surface. The sound of its fall–very soft, distinct–is like a syllable of silence, and enough to move a poet.”

A listener wrote to tell me that she was in Calgary during the September 11th crisis. She could not get back home for a few days. During that time, she went into a card store and found these words, words that helped to put some aspects of her life into perspective. This is a portion of what she sent, penned by an unknown author. “Touch me in places no one has ever reached before / In silent places where words only interfere, / In sad places where only whispering makes sense.”

There are also times when we would wish a break in the silence…

W. R. Goldsmith was quoted in the January 30th, 2006 issue of The Globe and Mail’s Social Studies Column. “Nothing so stirs a man’s conscience or excites his curiosity as a woman’s dead silence.”

***

Don Jackson

“One by one in the moonligh there, / Neighing far off on the haunted air, / The unicorns come down to the sea.” Conrad Aiken from Evening Song

Even if a unicorn were to pass by on this cold night, most people might not even see it; they would be looking in the wrong direction. They would be looking up at the last full lunar eclipse until 2010.

As it said in the 2008 edition of The Old Farmer’s Almanac: “The moon enters Earth’s umbral shadow at 8:43 p.m. EST, and the eclipse becomes total at 10:01 p.m. EST. Totality ends at 10:52 p.m. EST, and the umbral phase ends at 12:09 a.m. EST on February 21.”

There are a few eclipse parties being held in Toronto tonight. One of them is at the Ontario Science Centre. It began at 8:00 p.m. We see eclipses on a fairly regular basis but this one is even more unique. There are a couple of other events occurring simultaneously. On one side of the moon is the planet Saturn, and on the other is the star Regulus. I’ve heard it said that if you look through a pair of binoculars when the eclipse is underway, you might even be able to see the rings of Saturn.

In my radio show tonight, there is an interesting connection between Saturn and the Arthur C. Clarke Sci-Fi Classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequel, 2010.

The U.S. Navy was also trying to get into the act today by creating their own fireworks. As if the eclipse wasn’t enough, they were trying to shoot down a defective spy satelite that is soon to be heading back to Earth. High seas in the northern Pacific Ocean have so far prevented them from launching a missile to try to break it up in orbit before re-entry. Their window of opportunity lasts through to the end of the month. Had it taken place tonight, we would possibly have had another celestial event worth noting….

According to The Book of General Ignorance, and the Social Studies column of the Friday, May 18th 2007 issue of the Globe and Mail, “Astronauts who have walked on the moon and traipsed lunar dust into their living quarters, report that the dust feels like snow, smells like gunpowder and doesn’t taste too bad.”

Most newscasts today were mentioning tonight’s eclipse. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that these other heavenly bodies are also visible. I hope you will be inspired tonight to budle up and head outdoors to witness something our ancestors feared. We no longer need to fear. It’s natural to want to understand.

Karen Wright from Discover, and featured in the Poins to Ponder column of the January 2003 Reader’s Digest, wrote: “We are made of stardust. It’s not just a poetic sentiment; it’s a fact. In a young universe built mostly from hydrogen and helium, the self-immolation of stars in supernovas forged almost all other chemical elements and spewed them into space. Over time they congealed into other stars and solar systems and, eventually, into life itself. So, in a sense, the urge to understand stars is woven into the fabric of our existence.”

***

Don Jackson

One of the most requested writings I’ve featured concerns a water-bearer in India and two water pots, one of them cracked. He would go to the stream every day with these two pots hung on the ends of a long pole that he carried across his neck. He would fill the pots at the stream and, by the time he reached his master’s house, one of them would have leaked so much that it was only half-full. The perfect pot was pleased with itself; the cracked pot was “ashamed of its imperfection,” as this unknown writer said. Of course, the cracked pot eventually learns that the water-bearer had planted flower seeds along the side of the path the water leaked on as it was being carried from the stream. It also learns that if it wasn’t for its imperfection, the master would have no beautiful flowers for his table…

“…a table gleaming with the light of candles, the whiteness of napery, the silver of the samovar and the tea service of transparent porcelain.” Leo Tolstoy from Anna Karenina.

Some years back, my wife and I decided to invest in a dining room table that would some day be considered a family heirloom. We wanted to take our time by visiting a few furniture stores to see what was available before deciding on a purchase. When we first laid eyes upon the set that is now in our dining room, it was akin to love at first sight. We both knew this was the table that would be the focal point for our family celebrations. I’ve hinted at this table in at least one past blog, but I thought I might fill in some of the details.

This was a table that was the creation of famed fashion designer Bob Mackie. He was also noted for creating the wardrobes for The Carol Burnett Show on TV. You might remember some of the outlandish costumes that she and the rest of her cast wore during their hilarious skits. This table is nothing like his vision for that popular sitcom. It is a circular glass table on a huge wooden pedestal. In that sense, there is no seat at the “head of the table.” I liked that idea. The chairs are large and quite comfortable, inviting one to linger over coffee or tea, and dessert. The hutch is magnificent with its beveled panes in the doors and glass shelves. There is a full-length mirror in the back that gives the impression that the interior is larger than it is. Inside, it is lit from above and the illumination is just enough to highlight our crystal and china.

Family and friends have gathered around this table on special occasions and for no occasion other than a simple meal. Over the years, my children have done their homework on this table. We’ve discussed business and family matters by the light of the chandelier that hangs above it, and sometimes even by the soft illumination of a single taper. A fruit bowl sometimes sits in the middle of the table; other times it is a vase of freshly cut flowers. My wife’s Valentine’s arrangement is taking centre-stage now.

I’m always reminded of this excerpt from the book Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil by John Berendt, published in 1994 by Random House. The book, of course, was the subject of a major motion picture by Clint Eastwood. Allow me to set the scene that interests me. The author and one of the characters are walking through a large cemetery. He learns from his guide that the property was once a plantation in Colonial times built by Colonel John Mulryne. But the house burned to the ground in the late 1700s. As the story was explained to the author, the fire was nothing short of spectacular. A fairly large dinner party was taking place on the night the flames erupted in the great house. I’ll let the author’s words describe what happened. “In the middle of dinner, the butler came up to the host and whispered that the roof had caught fire and that nothing could be done to stop it. The host rose calmly, clinked his glass, and invited his guests into the garden. The servants carried the table and chairs after them, and the dinner continued by the light of the raging fire. The host made the best of it. He regaled his guests with amusing stories and jests while the flames consumed his house. Then, in turn, each guest rose and offered a toast to the host, the house, and the delicious repast. When the toasts were finished, the host threw his crystal glass against the trunk of an old tree, and each of the guests followed suit. Tradition has it that if you listen closely on quiet nights you can still hear the laughter and the shattering of crystal glasses.” That excerpt has always been a source of wonder to me. How the host could be so calm while his house burned in the background. At least they were able to save the dining room table and chairs from the conflagration.

In my radio show tonight, I mention the castaways in Lost and those who chose to get lost in Survivor sitting on the ground around a campfire sharing a meal. It reminded me of this: “Rather than chairs and tables, I preferred the ground, trees, and caves, for in those places I felt I could lean against the cheek of God.” Clarissa Pinkola Estes quoted in the book Take The Step: The Bridge Will Be There by Grace Cirocco published in 2001 by Harper Collins.

***

Don Jackson

“Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, / Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.” Oliver Goldsmith in The Deserted Village.

One of my favorite books is La Rose: An Intimacy of Roses with the incredibly beautiful photographs of True Redd. The book was published in 1990 by Western Eye Press. Its ISBN is 0-941283-07-0. I give you all this information because if there is a special place in your heart reserved for the roses you’ve received through the years, this book should be on your coffee table or nightstand. It features the stunning photography of “a poet who expresses himself with a camera,” as it said about the author on the inside back cover. There is another quote about the author’s unique vision: “Seeing colors, forms, and even emotions, that perhaps only come into existence through the act of seeing.”

The rose is the perfect subject since it engenders so many emotions in us. There are so many closeups that take you deep into the heart of the rose, almost to its very soul. But there is also one more unlike any other photo in the book. It is a closeup of the stem with the extremely sharp barbs looking even more menacing than usual. It’s photographed against a black background with a few dew drops on the stem. Over dinner tonight, I looked at the thorns on the stems of the roses I bought for my wife for Valentine’s Day. They are in a delicate crystal vase in the middle of the dining room table. They seemed so small as to be almost inconspicuous. The photograph in this book shows very clearly that, though they may be small, they could still draw a little blood. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on the receiving end of those sharp quills when trimming the stems of roses for the vase.

“My grandfather always said that living is like licking honey off a thorn.” A quote from Louis Adamic included in the 1960s collection The Treasure Chest published by Harper and Row, Publishers.

In Greek mythology, Hera, the wife of Zeus, was really the cause of the 12 labors of Hercules, and remained a thorn in his side for the rest of his life. Some people are meant to be the rose; others, the thorns.

“When pained, by all means cry, bang the walls, pour your soul out. Feel the pain and ride it out. Then hold it up for you to see. Let it be a reflection of better things to come, not a shattered image of the past. Then and only then will we realize that pain, just like a thorn on a rose’s stem, is merely a reminder of how beautiful life can really be.” An excerpt from the writing of Dean F. Mapa, writer, motivational speaker and success coach. The writing was sent to me via e-mail by a listener sometime back.

I was outside for a while today looking at our front lawn and gardens completely buried by all the snow we’ve had. It seems we might be in for another dumping later this weekend. Our rosebushes are deep in their winter sleep right now, their “collars” pulled up around the plants to protect them from the cold. This excerpt from the writing of Dante serves to remind me that the cold barbs of winter are nothing more than a minor nuisance when considering what lies ahead…

“For I have seen, stiff and sharp, / The thornbush stand all winter long, / Then finally bear a rose upon its top.”

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Don Jackson