March
24
SQUIGGLES
Child-like squiggles
in crayonic wiggles
come to life
here in Everett
fed by snow
some say "Worms!"
I say "Miracle."
March
19
https://aeon.co/videos/art-that-makes-meaning-from-whats-been-discarded-and-music-from-the-sounds-of-loneliness?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=fbb942af0e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_03_18&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-fbb942af0e-70343981
March
18
Every day comes news of something we are losing. Today, it is that within 10 years, more than 3,000 languages will become extinct. Read about it here:
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/an-ode-to-a-dying-language/article22882669.ece
March
10
Conversation with a Blind, One-armed Dwarf
The dwarf was no taller than an ordinary desk, but this was
no ordinary dwarf. First, there is only one arm. Second,
wearing sunglasses and moving gingerly suggests at least
partial blindness.
"May I know your name," I asked.
"Si."
"Oh, you are a Spanish dwarf then."
"No. That is my name."
"That is unusual. What's your last name?"
"Si. My name is Si Si. I have no middle name."
"I see."
"I don't."
"Do you always appear out of the blue like this?"
"Of course. Otherwise, everyone would avoid me."
"Well then, what's the purpose of your visit?"
“To deliver a message from The Committee.”
“The Committee? I don’t know what you are referring to.”
“No matter.”
“What’s the message?”
“Dwarfs are dedicated to seeing tasks through to completion.”
“That’s it?”
“It’s enough.”
March
8
My Esterbrook
The Esterbrook Pen Company was founded in 1858. It was the sole pen manufacturer in the United States. It began with the sale of nibs (steel pen points one dipped in ink). With the development of the true “fountain” pen (ink carried in the barrel housing that flowed through the pen point), the company reached its zenith in producing 600,000 pens a day. In 1967, the company added the Venus Pencil line. The company went bankrupt in 1971, as fountain pens finally gave way to ballpoint pens. Surprisingly, Esterbrook was resurrected in 2014, and is enjoying a comeback of the original pen design.
Below is a picture of my Esterbrook fountain pen which I received from my parents as a graduation gift from high school in 1956. It is sitting atop my “new” Olympia 256 portable typewriter, which is a 1956 model, exactly like the one I also received at the same time as my Esterbrook, but which I had let go when electrics came along. So, they are together once again. I have written with my Esterbrook now for nearly 62 pears! I write with it every day. I still marvel at the phenomenon of thoughts becoming words on the page through the hand and this “instrument of ink.” There is something in this experience that is different than computer keyboards producing thoughts on the screen. It has something to do with intimacy.
February
22
COMING SOON…a most important work of interest to all practitioners, seekers and those involved in the psychological and psychiatric healing arts: WHILE PSYCHIATRY SLEPT: Reawakening the Imagination in Therapy, by Dr. George Mecouch, psychiatrist, with Foreword by Jungian Analyst Russell A. Lockhart, Ph. D., will be published on May 1, 2018. Pre-orders will be available on Amazon in April. Highly recommended by Thomas Moore (“Beautiful, original, daring”), Amy and Arnold Mindell (“Mecouch envisions a new future for psychiatry”), and Will Hall (“A vital antidote to our era’s debilitating epidemic of ‘evidence-based’ medicine”), host of KBOO-FM’s Madness Radio.
Lockhart writes in his Foreword:
"It may be too much to expect older practitioners to open themselves to change. Like the old church fathers, they will not look through the Galilean telescope that story-mind makes possible. Most everything animates against it. But for the newer and younger practitioner, those not yet straight-jacketed in the certainties of dogma, those still open to risk, these stories of the art of healing may catch hold of the mind and heart, and open up possibilities for creating new and unexpected modes of working in the future."