To show how old, and old fashioned, I am, today we received four CDs of Christmas music I ordered a week or so ago. As I’m typing this, the Better Half and I are listening to An American Christmas: Shapenote Carols from New England & Appalachia. As native Minnesotans would say: “It’s different.”
The other three CDs are Windham Hill albums, one guitar, one winter solstice, one Christmas. We’re building on years of enjoying George Winston and a few Celtic Christmas albums. Last night’s snow provides a wonderful setting for listening to Christmas and Solstice music. Now, if we can learn to keep away from news media and social media platforms for a couple of weeks, we may get to relax and enjoy the holidays.
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| another Charlie Brown Christmas tree
Photo by J. Harrington
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This year’s tree is pictured above. To its right are the sprigs of winterberries we foraged a couple of weeks ago. [Look for sprigs arising from the brown vase on the stereo speaker.] I think we’ve got the Christmas greens taken care of. Presents are getting acquired, sorted and wrapped. Soon it will be time for attention to be turned to cookies for Santa, and his helpers.
Before we sign off for today, we want to share something that showed up in our email inbox this morning. A bit of background: twenty-five years ago was the 25th anniversary of E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered: 25 Years Later ... with Commentaries. Today’s quote from Schumacher seems to fit the times and the season quite well. I’m going to take it to heart as a resolution for next year and offer it here for your consideration. You might want to take a look at the book also.
Everywhere people ask: "What can I actually do?" The answer is as simple as it is disconcerting: we can, each of us, work to put our own inner house in order. The guidance we need for this work cannot be found in science or technology, the value of which utterly depends on the ends they serve; but it can still be found in the traditional wisdom of mankind.
The Way We Love Something Small
The translucent claws of newborn mice
this pearl cast of color,
the barely perceptible
like a ghosted threshold of being:
here not here.
The single breath we hold
on the thinnest verge of sight:
not there there.
A curve nearly naked
an arc of almost,
a wisp of becoming
a wand—
tiny enough to change me.
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Please be kind to each other while you can.
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