Saturday, December 31, 2005

Schumann


To send light into the darkness of men's hearts -
such is the duty of the artist.
Robert Schumann

Happy New Year


We've Holidays and happy days, and memory days galore
And when we've toasted every one,
I offer just one more
So let us lift our glasses high, and drink a silent toast
To the day, deep buried in each heart that each one loves the most.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Lincoln


"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

"Towering genius distains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored."

"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other."

"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

"And in the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."

"He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help."

"No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar."

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

The Daisy Follows Soft the Sun


HE daisy follows soft the sun,
And when his golden walk is done,
Sits shyly at his feet.
He, waking, finds the flower near.
"Wherefore, marauder, art thou here?"
"Because, sir, love is sweet!"

We are the flower, Thou the sun!
Forgive us, if as days decline,
We nearer steal to Thee,--
Enamoured of the parting west,
The peace, the flight, the amethyst,
Night's possibility!



Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Maestro's Daughter








Maestro's Daughter

Refrains and arpeggios, scale and chord,
melancholy music from the heart is poured.

Beautiful melody from the wounded soul,
searching for a way to make her heart whole.

God granted talent, and doled out her lot and
now she turns ability into the refuge she has sought.

Sitting at the piano where black and white combine
into a symphonic outpour that echoes through out time.

The song of her heart takes melodious shape,
and as she composes, music dulls heartache.

Dedicated To Gabriella

Briseis Phemonoe


Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Ocean Born


- Ocean Born -

Waters break eternal upon a finite shore
as the sands wash away the ocean crashes ever more.

The tide forever pulling an everlasting agony
and everything within its grasp becomes at one with the Sea.

"Ocean-lord! Take my life; waves come cover me let me
embrace the cleansing main and gain immortality.

Captivate me, infinite waters the waves transform
my soul- let me become a child of the deeps and at last be made whole.

"The rushing of the current a child's lullabye,
and as she drifts in ethereal seas-her soul will never die.


Briseis Phemonoe

Friday, December 16, 2005

The Christmas Spirit




Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. --Norman Vincent Peale

Time was with most of us, when Christmas Day, encircling all our limited world like a magic ring, left nothing out for us to miss or seek; bound together all our home enjoyments, affections, and hopes; grouped everything and everyone round the Christmas fire, and make the little picture shining in our bright young eyes, complete. -Charles Dickens

What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace. -Agnes M. Pharo

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home! -Charles Dickens

The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others' burdens, easing other's loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas. -W. C. Jones

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other. -Burton Hillis

Whatever else be lost among the years, Let us keep Christmas still a shining thing: Whatever doubts assail us, or what fears, Let us hold close one day, remembering Its poignant meaning for the hearts of men. Let us get back our childlike faith again. -Grace Noll Crowell

Christmas! The very word brings joy to our hearts. No matter how we may dread the rush, the long Christmas lists for gifts and cards to be bought and given--when Christmas Day comes there is still the same warm feeling we had as children, the same warmth that enfolds our hearts and our homes. -Joan Winmill Brown

Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart... filled it, too, with a melody that would last forever. -Bess Streeter Aldrich

Christmas ... is not an eternal event at all, but a piece of one's home that one carries in one's heart. -Freya Stark

From Home to home, and heart to heart, from one place to another. The warmth and joy of Christmas, brings us closer to each other. -Emily Matthews

Christmas--that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance--a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved. -Augusta E. Rundel

The merry family gatherings-- The old, the very young; The strangely lovely way they Harmonize in carols sung. For Christmas is tradition time-- Traditions that recall The precious memories down the years, The sameness of them all. -Helen Lowrie Marshall

Gift of Gab

I swear, I will not dishonor my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly as a guardian of beauty,
a healer of misery, as a messenger of peace,
and an architect of love...

To Love and be Loved


Do not try to push your way through to the front ranks of your profession; do not run after distinctions and rewards; but do your utmost to find an entry into the world of beauty.

Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time.

To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.

Sydney Smith

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

A Christmas Wish

May the hopeful spirit
of Christmas renew us.

May the light of love and friendship
shine through us.


May we all hold these feelings
deep in our hearts every day.

And may our boundless soul
find its enternal way.

Little Piccola

LITTLE PICCOLA AFTER CELIA THAXTER

IN the sunny land of France there lived many years ago a sweet little maid named Piccola. Her father had died when she was a baby, and her mother was very poor and had to work hard all day in the fields for a few sous.

Little Piccola had no dolls and toys, and she was often hungry and cold, but she was never sad nor lonely. What if there were no children for her to play with! What if she did not have fine clothes and beautiful toys! In summer there were always the birds in the forest, and the flowers in the fields and meadows, -- the birds sang so sweetly, and the flowers were so bright and pretty!

In the winter when the ground was covered with snow, Piccola helped her mother, and knit long stockings of blue wool. The snow-birds had to be fed with crumbs, if she could find any, and then, there was Christmas Day.

But one year her mother was ill and could not earn any money. Piccola worked hard all the day long, and sold the stockings which she knit, even when her own little bare feet were blue with the cold.

As Christmas Day drew near she said to her mother, "I wonder what the good Saint Nicholas will bring me this year. I cannot hang my stocking in the fireplace, but I shall put my wooden shoe on the hearth for him. He will not forget me, I am sure." "Do not think of it this year, my dear child," replied her mother. "We must be glad if we have bread enough to eat."

But Piccola could not believe that the good saint would forget her. On Christmas Eve she put her little wooden patten on the hearth before the fire, and went to sleep to dream of Saint Nicholas.

As the poor mother looked at the little shoe, she thought how unhappy her dear child would be to find it empty in the morning, and wished that she had something, even if it were only a tiny cake, for a Christmas gift. There was nothing in the house but a few sous, and these must be saved to buy bread.

When the morning dawned Piccola awoke and ran to her shoe. Saint Nicholas had come in the night. He had not forgotten the little child who had thought of him with such faith.
See what he had brought her. It lay in the wooden patten, looking up at her with its two bright eyes, and chirping contentedly as she stroked its soft feathers.

A little swallow, cold and hungry, had flown into the chimney and down to the room, and had crept into the shoe for warmth. Piccola danced for joy, and clasped the shivering swallow to her breast. She ran to her mother's bedside. "Look, look!" she cried. "A Christmas gift, a gift from the good Saint Nicholas!" And she danced again in her little bare feet. Then she fed and warmed the bird, and cared for it tenderly all winter long; teaching it to take crumbs from her hand and her lips, and to sit on her shoulder while she was working.

In the spring she opened the window for it to fly away, but it lived in the woods near by all summer, and came often in the early morning to sing its sweetest songs at her door.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Is There a Santa Claus?




From the Editorial Page of The New York Sun,written by Francis P. Church, September 21,
"Dear Editor--I am 8 years old."Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus."Papa says, 'If you see it in The Sun, it's so.'"Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon115 West Ninety-fifth Street

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the scepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no child-like faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Jesus of Nazerene

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Put up again thy sword into its place: for all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword.

What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul.



Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Whatever thy hand findest to do, do it with all thy heart.

The kingdom of god is within you.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

The Universe


The universal Mind contains all knowledge. It is the potential ultimate of all things. To it, all things are possible.

The universe is impersonal. It gives alike to all. It is no respecter of persons. It values each alike.

This is the only obsession and the only devils there are. We are the obsessing entity, and we are the only devil we will ever meet.

To believe in a just law of cause and effect, carrying with it a punishment or a reward, is to believe in righteousness.

We have a song to sing; we have a joy to bring to the world, and love and peace and happiness.

When prayer removes distrust and doubt and enters the field of mental certainty, it becomes faith; and the universe is built on faith.

Ernest Holmes

The Black Moses


We saw the lightning and that was the guns and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped.

I would fight for my liberty so long as my strength lasted, and if the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me.

I looked at my hands, to see if I was the same person now I was free. there was such a glory over everything, the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in heaven.

I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was two things I had a right to, liberty and death. If I could not have one, I would have the other, for no man should take me alive.

On my underground railroad I never ran my train off the track. And I never lost a passenger.

I had crossed the line of which I had so long been dreaming. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land. . . .

Harriet Tubman