Easing into the season

The weather is beautiful today, blue skies, not much wind. Nevertheless, I have no intention of clearing leaves from the driveway again, because tomorrow the wind returns and the branches aren’t yet bare of leaves, so I’d just have to repeat driveway clearing for the 5th or 6th time this year. I’m just going to enjoy as much of the day as I can and let tomorrow (or the day after) take care of tomorrow. Next week we compensate for this week’s above normal temperatures so....

Today the Better Half and I started getting seriously, but joyously, organized for the holidays. She’s been playing Santa’s little Elf much of the year. I’m just starting to get into holiday moods and modes although, as noted recently on these pages, I’ve but begun to contemplate my own Christmas wishes, other than for, literally, peace on earth, good will to all. Have you noticed that the number of Scrooges has grown phenomenally over the last decade or two? May each and every one of them be visited by the requisite ghosts of past, present and future, so that they change their ways, each and every one.

some Novembers look more Christmassy than others

Photo by J. Harrington

Since I’ve already referenced Dickens’ Christmas Carol, I may as well pile on and include a Wordsworth sonnet that popped into my head this morning. It appears that concerns that arose during the first industrial revolution remain with US, changed in form but not substance. Perhaps it is well past time to reconsider our definition of “progress?” There’s an old dictum in planning that “more of the same never solved a problem.” Einstein has noted that “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” I wonder if spirituality is a different level of consciousness than materialism.

Today’s poem could be considered to be little more than a downer, or, viewed more opportunely, it can be seen as a caution for how to better enjoy and benefit from the upcoming holidays and holydays.

The World Is Too Much With Us

By William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

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