Philosophical rambles

[Recidiva]

I've been pondering the wonder of snow.

I haven't seen snow in years. Now there's a wonder.

I do miss white Christmas.

But I do not miss shoveling.

 

[rgraham666]

I haven't seen snow in years. Now there's a wonder.

I do miss white Christmas.

But I do not miss shoveling.

When I'm done shoveling mine I'll send you some, OK?

 

[Recidiva]

When I'm done shoveling mine I'll send you some, OK?

Sure!

I'll keep it in the freezer.

 

[scriptordelecto]

When I'm done shoveling mine I'll send you some, OK?

You know Rob, out of context that could describe what we do here on the AH quite effectively.

 

[Samandiriel]

Snow.

I remember when I still lived at home the nights when we had a storm. Everyone would be asleep.
I would stand on my bed and crank open the window letting the cold air in, the smell of snow would greet me.
I would listen to the muffled sounds coming from the few cars that had to travel the snowy highway below us.
If the moon was bright I would just stand and look at how the snow lay virtually untouched except for a lone rabbit track that left it morsed code across the white page.
It was a beautiful space to be in, so still and perfect.
I can feel it now even after all those years.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

What is it about the human voice in song that can take you to different levels of emotion and spirit?
The blending of beautiful voices rising and falling, sweet and soothing.
The power of a breath stirring something deep inside.
Without song the world would be so incomplete.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Ever notice how sometimes your life is like being on the ocean adrift in your little life raft...and you patch it up with bandaids and wads of gum.
Sometimes another boat comes along, but you won't leave your little raft. You've become comfortable with it. It saved you in the begining.
and so you drift along.

 

[mckai777]

According to Tocqueville, the three great ills that plague mankind:

Disease
Death
Doubt

 

[jomar]

I always thought that if I got to Rome or London, what a fabulous adventure to find the centre of the city, the oldest known part, with chipped and crumbling structures, and walk on a path, over barely recognizable cobblestone or brick roads (a feature I found endearing in NYC) through history to the edges of modern, often stilted, surburban civilization.

Yes. London is where I had that "in awe" feeling. Walking around with all the modern stores and cars and suddenly encountering remnants of an ancient wall poking out into your path. Made me stop and think about the history of things. If the walls could talk and all that.

 

[MagicaPractica]

Snow.

I remember when I still lived at home the nights when we had a storm. Everyone would be asleep.
I would stand on my bed and crank open the window letting the cold air in, the smell of snow would greet me.
I would listen to the muffled sounds coming from the few cars that had to travel the snowy highway below us.
If the moon was bright I would just stand and look at how the snow lay virtually untouched except for a lone rabbit track that left it morsed code across the white page.
It was a beautiful space to be in, so still and perfect.
I can feel it now even after all those years.

This took me back to my childhood, standing at the row of windows in the dining room with the light dimmed low, looking out at the snow falling sparsely under the street lamp. The heat of the woodstove warmed my back and the muted sound of the television came from the living room. It was so quiet and peaceful.

 

[cumallday]

Not sure if this fits here, but...

I was out fishing with a friend one calm and beautiful summer's day. We were out on one of the largest lakes in our area. Time had come to rest in the silence and stillness that presided there. A hazy blue enfolded everything. As far as the eye could see shimered in a majestic blue light. Earth and sky had come together in a finely woven blue. No object protruded anywhere. Trees, stones, fields, and islands had forgotten themselves in the daze of blue. Then, suddenly, a harsh flutter as near us the lake surface split and a huge loon flew from underneath the water and struck up into the air. It's slick black wings and large awkward shape were like an eruption from the underworld. Against the sublime blue everywhere its strange form fluttered and gleamed in slick black. She was the one clear object to be seen. This was an event of pure disclosure: a sudden epiphany from between the worlds. Her strange beauty struck itself as a counterpoint to the dreamlike delicacy of the lake and landscape. Sometimes beauty is that unpredictable; a threshold opens and mystery comes alive to visit the earth's concealed grace upon us. I'll sometimes tell my girlfriend I see loons in her beautiful blue eyes.

 

[Gi_Venus]

I was out fishing with a friend one calm and beautiful summer's day. We were out on one of the largest lakes in our area. Time had come to rest in the silence and stillness that presided there. A hazy blue enfolded everything. As far as the eye could see shimered in a majestic blue light. Earth and sky had come together in a finely woven blue. No object protruded anywhere. Trees, stones, fields, and islands had forgotten themselves in the daze of blue. Then, suddenly, a harsh flutter as near us the lake surface split and a huge loon flew from underneath the water and struck up into the air. It's slick black wings and large awkward shape were like an eruption from the underworld. Against the sublime blue everywhere its strange form fluttered and gleamed in slick black. She was the one clear object to be seen. This was an event of pure disclosure: a sudden epiphany from between the worlds. Her strange beauty struck itself as a counterpoint to the dreamlike delicacy of the lake and landscape. Sometimes beauty is that unpredictable; a threshold opens and mystery comes alive to visit the earth's concealed grace upon us. I'll sometimes tell my girlfriend I see loons in her beautiful blue eyes.

Hi cumallday I love sudden beauty. The depth of your posting is filled with layers of beauty of visual imagery.

 

[impressive]

Unconditional love does not mean unconditional sacrifice.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Ramble 1,114

The leaves have almost all expended their colors. Falling to the ground to begin the cycle again. Some pressed inbetween the pages of books to be treasured and preserved.
I think of the treasures of long dead kings and queens and emporers and such, displayed in glass covered boxes smudged with the fingerprints of the living. The things they touched and possessed bought with coins and paper no longer circulated, bartered items, stolen goods all for us to see.
The bones of madmen and the incorrupted bodies of saints and sinners, macbre relics of past terrors and hopes.
We stand in lines to shuffle past.
Paintings filmed over from decades but still as beautiful barricaded by velvet ropes. Why were they painted? What went through the artist's mind?
Sculptures born of stone chipped away and polished. Words engraved with modest tools. Flowers and cloth and faces of marble and granite that begged to be touched.
Words on fragile bits of paper that reveal the past, some in languages long forgotten or spoken.

What would I leave behind I wonder? What treasure of mine would sit behind the climate controlled glass or be protected by the velvet rope?
In 2,000 years if they were to dig up my remains would they wonder about my life? Who I was? What my treasures meant? Would I be studies and laid out on a tray for inspection?
"What did she do?" they would ponder.
Would my footprints be erased from this earth? Where did they go? What did I touch and see and taste and smell and hear?
Will I leave behind my words? a splatter of paint? a drop of blood?
Millions of people pass on everyday...with their words, their songs, their art. Who remembers them?
Who will remember me?

 

[Nirvanadragones]

What would I leave behind I wonder? . . . Would my footprints be erased from this earth? Where did they go? What did I touch and see and taste and smell and hear? . . . Will I leave behind my words? . . . Who will remember me?

...was by chance spared the sight of Renée dying, then dead. She carried off with her more than one secret, and beneath her purple veil, Renée Vivien, the poet, led away--her throat encircled with moonstones, beryls, aquamarines, and other anemic gems--the immodest child, the excited little girl who taught me, with unembarrassed competence: "There are fewer ways of making love than they say, and more than one believes."

~ Colette (as quoted by Dolores Klaich in Woman Plus Woman)

 

[Gi_Venus]

The leaves have almost all expended their colors. Falling to the ground to begin the cycle again. Some pressed inbetween the pages of books to be treasured and preserved.
I think of the treasures of long dead kings and queens and emporers and such, displayed in glass covered boxes smudged with the fingerprints of the living. The things they touched and possessed bought with coins and paper no longer circulated, bartered items, stolen goods all for us to see.
The bones of madmen and the incorrupted bodies of saints and sinners, macbre relics of past terrors and hopes.
We stand in lines to shuffle past.
Paintings filmed over from decades but still as beautiful barricaded by velvet ropes. Why were they painted? What went through the artist's mind?
Sculptures born of stone chipped away and polished. Words engraved with modest tools. Flowers and cloth and faces of marble and granite that begged to be touched.
Words on fragile bits of paper that reveal the past, some in languages long forgotten or spoken.

What would I leave behind I wonder? What treasure of mine would sit behind the climate controlled glass or be protected by the velvet rope?
In 2,000 years if they were to dig up my remains would they wonder about my life? Who I was? What my treasures meant? Would I be studies and laid out on a tray for inspection?
"What did she do?" they would ponder.
Would my footprints be erased from this earth? Where did they go? What did I touch and see and taste and smell and hear?
Will I leave behind my words? a splatter of paint? a drop of blood?
Millions of people pass on everyday...with their words, their songs, their art. Who remembers them?
Who will remember me?

We all leave our mark on the universe...each act of beauty a kiss on the fabric of all time. Each a ripple transcending imperceptively around us making the world ever more beautiful. Each beautiful thought a splash of color vivid and bright shining in the great empty, beacons of hope for all to find their way.

You are already immortal.

 

[Pure]

note to abs

In 2,000 years if they were to dig up my remains would they wonder about my life? Who I was? What my treasures meant? Would I be studies and laid out on a tray for inspection?
"What did she do?" they would ponder.
Would my footprints be erased from this earth? Where did they go? What did I touch and see and taste and smell and hear?
Will I leave behind my words? a splatter of paint? a drop of blood?
Millions of people pass on everyday...with their words, their songs, their art. Who remembers them?
Who will remember me?

Your friends and family will remember you for a generation or two. Your cemetery plot will likely NOT become a tourist mecca, like Dylan Thomas's.
Your papers will not be in numbered boxes in a library.

You, like me, will NOT be a figure in a Who's Who, or in the history books, or, Time Magazine's, "Important persons of the 21st century"; in ancient times, your name would NOT appear in oral tales and epics, like Beowolf and the Illiad.

The PLUS side of the above; you will not be around to worry about this state of affairs, just as you were not around before your birth to look forward to your illustrious arrival. You can only worry now.

Oddly enough, your physical remains, your last set of molecules will be around for a long time. In the air, earth, trees and bushes. Atoms circulating till the sun burns up the earth. Does that help?

 

[ABSTRUSE]

In 2,000 years if they were to dig up my remains would they wonder about my life? Who I was? What my treasures meant? Would I be studies and laid out on a tray for inspection?
"What did she do?" they would ponder.
Would my footprints be erased from this earth? Where did they go? What did I touch and see and taste and smell and hear?
Will I leave behind my words? a splatter of paint? a drop of blood?
Millions of people pass on everyday...with their words, their songs, their art. Who remembers them?
Who will remember me?

Your friends and family will remember you for a generation or two. Your cemetery plot will likely NOT become a tourist mecca, like Dylan Thomas's.
Your papers will not be in numbered boxes in a library.

You, like me, will NOT be a figure in a Who's Who, or in the history books, or, Time Magazine's, "Important persons of the 21st century"; in ancient times, your name would NOT appear in oral tales and epics, like Beowolf and the Illiad.

The PLUS side of the above; you will not be around to worry about this state of affairs, just as you were not around before your birth to look forward to your illustrious arrival. You can only worry now.

Oddly enough, your physical remains, your last set of molecules will be around for a long time. In the air, earth, trees and bushes. Atoms circulating till the sun burns up the earth. Does that help?

How did I miss this? Thank you Pure.

 

[lesbiaphrodite]

More than anything in this world, I adore silence. I adore it at odd times and odd places, but I adore it most of all when with a lover. When no words are necessary anymore. When everything is communicated through the senses.

 

[oggbashan]

Yes. London is where I had that "in awe" feeling. Walking around with all the modern stores and cars and suddenly encountering remnants of an ancient wall poking out into your path. Made me stop and think about the history of things. If the walls could talk and all that.

I prefer Canterbury. The city's walls still stand on their Roman foundations. Under a modern building is their Roman museum with the tessalated floors in their original position. Outside the city's walls are the remains of St Augustine's Abbey. In the grounds are the remains of the Roman building (St Pancras' Church) where Queen Bertha used to pray before St Augustine came to England. Around the ruins are the burial places of the Kings of Kent AND St Augustine. I can touch the Roman walls, the walls built in St Augustine's time and the tombs of the Kings of Kent. A few hundred yards away is Canterbury's Cathedral still much in use, yet for me the ruins of St Augustine's Abbey are more evocative.

Just beyond those ruins is St Martin's Church - the oldest English Parish church still in use.

About ten miles away is Richborough "Castle" the entry port for the Roman legions from Emperor Claudius' time. The walls still stand in places to their original height. Richborough Castle has few visitors compared with Canterbury Cathedral yet it was possibly the landing place of St Augustine - he must have been using an out-of-date sat nav system.

History is all around me. When I walk through Canterbury I am walking over a Roman city and most of the street alignments are still those the Romans set out. If I drive south from Canterbury to Dover or Hythe I am driving down a Roman road built by the legions. As I drive, aircraft fly overhead and my position is plotted by satellite...

Og

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Mistakes, bad choices and while I ponder I will enevitably ramble. Its like origami, you finish it, it sucks, you refold, reFlatten, reconfigure...but the creases remain like scars.
Scars are permanent reminders.
Memories, past and repressed, surfacing....what to do, what to do?
Deal.
Fix.
Prioritize.

No one said the journey would be easy, it doesn't have to lack beauty and along the way there is much to learn.

 

[lesbiaphrodite]

Desires. Long kept silences of wanting. The need to reach across oceans of time, across the deep chasm, and touch her face.

 

[Gi_Venus]

Desires. Long kept silences of wanting. The need to reach across oceans of time, across the deep chasm, and touch her face.

*sigh!*

 

[lesbiaphrodite]

*sigh!*