Good morning Folks … today’s star is as pink as a pussy hat and says:
“And so the hand of time will take the fragments of our lives and make out of it life’s remnants, as they fall, a thing of beauty after all.” – Douglas M
alloch
Douglas Malloch (May 5, 1877 – July 2, 1938) was a Michagan-born American poet, writer and lumberman. Michigan was known as a centre of the lumbering industry. He grew up amidst the forest, logging camps, sawmills and lumber yards and became known as the “Lumberman’s poet” both locally and nationally. Funny, I was a tad disappointed with this portrait of a studious man in a nice suit. I blame the hipsters for making me expect a bushy beard and check shirt and maybe an ax or some artisan pickles over his shoulder. But I digress … Douglas is my new poet crush. Here’s a little sample to give us a lift on our first Trump monday …
It’s Fine Today
Sure, this world is full of trouble
I ain’t said it ain’t.
Lord, I’ve had enough and double
Reason for complaint;
Rain and storm have come to fret me,
Skies are often gray;
Ain’t it fine today?
And I guess it is fine today, no? Sure the dog has wee-d FOUR times on the sitting room carpet, construction work outside is breaking my brain, and the showers broken … but the sun is out. I got this pic on my landing … I hope it’s fine for you too. 
I’ll leave you with another lovely snippet …
If you can’t be a pine on the top of the hill,
Be a scrub in the valley — but be
The best little scrub by the side of the rill;
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.
xxBeth
I have a feeling I’m in good company saying that seeing images of women’s marches from all over the globe (which have added up to the millions) lifted my heart. All those pink hats and the pun-ny posters.
My favourite was ‘Hey Mister, keep your tiny hands off my sisters.’
Lao Tzu lived in the 6th century BC, was a philosopher and the founder of Taoism. He also said, “The sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees.” Ergo, get quiet and you’ll hear the answer.
My kids were a bit baffled as to why ‘everyone is so loud,’ but knew something special was happening – and it felt great being able to walk right down the middle of the busiest street in the land with no cars. I explained we were walking with hundreds of thousands of others all over the world in the name of love. We walked with men dressed as women, with women who held each others’ hands, and with many men dressed as men, children and a few dogs.
Good mornin
g All,
Today's star is a patch of yellow on a dark day and contains these words ...
"Never, never rest contented with any circle of ideas, but always be certain that a wider one is still possible" – Pearl Bailey
And how auspicious it seems to pull out these words on inauguration day. Pearl lived from 1918-1990 and was an actress, singer, author and political activist who became a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador in 1969. Through her work with the UN, she became known as the Ambassador of Love due to her ability to defuse international political tensions.
So, we will do our best to summon up Pearl's spirit of togetherness on this most divisive of days. Her phrase 'circle of ideas' has me thinking of networks and a wonderful New York Times article my friend Mischa mentioned, about a chap called Peter Wohlleben – a German forest ranger who believes that trees talk to each other and have their own social networks. "They can count, learn and remember; nurse sick neighbours; warn each other of danger by sending electrical signals across a fungal network known as the “Wood Wide Web.”"
I saw this on my run this morning[/caption]
So folks, as of today, we have a proverbial ax-wielding lunatic in the forest. But I keep thinking of Trump like really bad weather at the bus stop. Y'know the situation where you've been waiting AGES for the bus. It's not coming. And now it's raining/sleeting/hailing. At least some of the time, that makes it easier to talk to the people at the bus stop who are getting as wet as you are. I've ended up so communally sopping wet that I've burst out laughing with a pack of total strangers. So here we go ... in these new web connected times of our own, we are leaning towards each other, marching with pink hats on and howling our collective howl that Love trumps Hate and knowing as Pearl Bailey said, 'a wider circle is still possible.'
xxB
That NY Times link looks like this but apologies for not being able to get it to go 'live.'(https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/world/europe/german-forest-ranger-finds-that-trees-have-social-networks-too.html) 
Good Morning All,
g anyone who’s really passionate about their super specific area of interest, even if the area couldn’t be of less interest to me. For example, I once met a repair man who came to fix a wonky Venetian blind. Boy was I not remotely interested in the inner workings of a Venetian blind, but when this burly man with an Eastern European accent called me over to show me what he was doing, I knew I was watching a poet. He described the way that ball-bearing bit fits onto the handle (bla, bla bla). Of course I still don’t much care about how they work, but his absolute love of his specialty did open my eyes to the engineering wonder of something I had never thought about for one single second. I stayed and watched him fix the joint-thingy. His fingers as light as a surgeon’s. Then he opened his bag, pulled out a soft, folded cloth and lovingly wiped each strand of the blind and unbent some crooked ones. Then he stood back a step to admire the working blind as if he was looking at the Gardens of Versailles. His expression was exactly the same as Barbara’s here at the pyramids.
On this greyest of days, I pulled out this two-tone star: It’s words of comfort for us …
This quote made the place where my ribs meet go all soft. I have been on this planet for over four decades and I still shuffle through my days in a swarm of ‘Sorry.’ It’s so automatic, I even say it to the dogs, constantly. In fact, I’ve said sorry to a blanket when I tugged at it. (Lord). It’s a difficult one to unravel, but something I’m going to try to pay attention to without getting too wound up. Amy has this great way of getting her feminist perspective across without seeming at all sanctimonious…
nice presidential nod: “Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
I must say today’s quote has given me chills of the best kind. As you can see it’s a Martin Luther line. A nice one, I thought, for the week that’s in it with the dreaded inauguration on Friday – a reminder of the optimistic act of planting even when things are falling apart. And in case we need a refresher, Martin Luther (without the King or Junior) was a German professor of theology, a priest, a monk and the namesake of the Lutherans, and lived over 500 years ago. Here’s an early portrait of his soulful face…
“To live a creative life, we must first lose our fear of being wrong.” – Joseph Chilton Pearce
Today’s ruby beauty says this:
