Welcome Oliver

Welcome Oliver Rich - Born November 25, 2018 to Hal and Leigh Rich

“Like a stone on the surface of a still river

Driving the ripples on forever

Redemption rips through the surface of time

In the cry of a tiny babe”

     - Cry of a Tiny Babe, Bruce Cockburn

May God bless and keep you always

May your wishes all come true

May you always do for others

And let others do for you

May you build a ladder to the stars

And climb on every rung

May you stay

May you stay forever young

   - Forever Young  , Bob Dylan

"Dear Child of God, you are loved with a love that nothing can shake, a love that loved you long before you were created, a love that will be there long after everything has disappeared.”

    —Desmond Tutu

It's no mystery when you can see clearly

Vibrating at a higher frequency

Fill your purpose as you go about life daily

Understanding what it means to clearly see, yeah

Spirit will provide….

Let go and Let God, Spirit will provide

• Spirit Will Provide , Van Morrison

Some say faith is a childish game

Play on, children ,like it’s Christmas Day

Sing me a song, sing me a melody

Sing out loud, you’re a symphony

I want you to live forever…

 - Live Forever , Drew Holcombe

Oliver,

,

Well, here you are. Welcome! Some say that children born at Christmastime get cheated. I believe there is a little extra special blessing when born around Christmas . Ask your Zia Lindsay and cousin Caroline about this. The moment our eyes connected I felt the overwhelming power of the most mystical unconditional love. I wondered if I was about to hear the great truth ,that secret of the universe , the message that all the mystics and saints have understood . A new born baby has come directly from the eternal spark, the source of all life, and being in your presence I was just humbled to behold such a living grace. You came into this world as result of love between and from your mother and father. When I see them see you, hear you, speak to you or hold you you I see and feel their love for you.

I worry about how fast human beings become so distracted, corrupted and detached from the all-encompassing pure love and peace so quickly when we enter this world. I worry about the world of the Herod’s of all origins and types and pray for the innocents, and their parents , they have taken before they even started out on the great journey back home. I worry about the ignorance, greed/self-centeredness and violence that tries to spit in the face of God and undo all the good. I worry about those who cannot help themselves and suffer needlessly. It is said 

“If a problem can be solved…why worry and if problem is unsolvable, worrying will not help.”

Worrying has not helped me much and worry really does not resolve anything does it? So, here are a few things I have learned along the way that you may want to think about :

• We are born out of love and and are loved constantly more than we will ever know;
• “Fall in love , stay in love because that is everything”
• Our purpose is to be genuine , use the talents we have been given to share that love and reflect that natural perfect peace;
• Follow your heart and listen to the great voice within and you will know what to do and what to be;
• Be grateful and humble as you make your way through the calm seas and storms of this great passage;
• Know and nurture the goodness in this world. Admire and help the “good “ people in this world ( You’ll know who they are.) Be one of those good people that others want to be around( They will find you and your parents are good models of this);
• There are those who are less fortunate and need your help and care;
• Nature teaches us a lot if you are present to it’s beauty ,peace and truth;
• Everything is evidence of the sacred …if you don’t get stuck in thinking or worrying too much about it;
• Music, poetry and art are channels of the truth ( don’t ever forget to dance your heart out);
• Trust your intuition always….
• Always be amazed by everything in this world and you will amaze everyone!

( Though your brother may annoy you at times…remember brothers do that and deep down he loves you more than your know. I have a brother too.)

Flourish all ways. 

Te voglio bene assai, bene assai.

Nonno

xox

Forever Young - Bob Dylan

https://youtu.be/Frj2CLGldC4

Spirit Will Provide - Van Morrison

https://youtu.be/EZKnTfVOLmM

Cry of a tiny babe - B. Cockburn

https://youtu.be/YmZlYiMCvSc

Murder in The City - Avett Brothers

https://youtu.be/cr420Jwr14U

Remember Me - T. Rundgren

https://youtu.be/z4vJIhv67M4

amdg

“One day I will find the right words and they will be simple"

- Jack Kerouac

“The only truth is music”

- Jack Kerouac

Copyright 2018 JF Sobecki LLC All Rights Reserved

Onward - ( a reflection inspired by the movie "Youth" )

"Contained in Everything I Do
There's a love I feel for you
Proclaimed in everything I write
You're the light, burning brightly
Onward through the night
Onward through the night of my life."
 - Onward , "Yes', C. Squire

 “We were talking, about the love that's gone so cold and the people, 

Who gain the world and lose their soul  Then you may find, peace of mind, is waiting there  And the time will come when you see we're all one, 

And life flows on within and without you”

       - Within Without You, G. Harrison

"You say that emotions are overrated.Emotions are all we've got."
               - Mick, "Youth"

Someone once suggested that that light at the end of this long meandering up and down tunnel doesn’t get any smaller with the passage of time. At what point did that original innocence fade from view behind us? What is it that tries and sometimes succeeds to dampen that once holy flame of enthusiasm? Where did that trusted lifelong companion go? Was there a specific voice that encouraged or tempted me to take that one specific path and he another? How is it that some continue to hold the hands of a loved one while others feel they need to traverse every step alone? Are we quick to forget the power of touch? Are we quick to forget the simple songs? Were not the simple songs all we have? Can we keep our heads up and hearts opened as we move onward through the night of our lives?

No thing lasts forever does it? Some trees fall more quickly than others. Broken barren branches, remnants of a glory that once was, are now strewn across the field and is fuel for the next pilgrim along the way eventually becoming ashes to nurture the earth where that roaming fire had burned through the days and nights. Some giving-trees seem to continue to grow strong and grand with seasonal rebirth. Others are cut down in their prime becoming trunks of rest for tired worn out pilgrims. Still, other trees perpetuate constant leaves as shade source of freedom for launching for Frost boys swinging as they lean towards heaven. He prayed that he could be one of those branches on a tree of Merton.

His meditation “There is no fear for my own last day but the heart trembles with the slightest consideration of the passing of the one’s I love and for the last breath of those who may have loved me. “

The purest innocence of babies and youth at honest play; the intoxicating freedom discovered in boundless music; the presence of love, and the egoless carefree resilience of an uncorrupted authenticity are what we need to keep spirits alive while making way in our time worn weathered vessels. Listen to the larger voices calling and suddenly consideration that all this is just coincidence and strictly chance -  is proven to be naïve.

___________________________________________________________

Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right 

Across the lines of straighter darker trees, 

I like to think some boy's been swinging them. 

But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay 

As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them 

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning 

After a rain. They click upon themselves 

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored 

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. 

Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells 

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust— 

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away 

You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. 

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, 

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed 

So low for long, they never right themselves: 

You may see their trunks arching in the woods 

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground 

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair 

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. 

But I was going to say when Truth broke in 

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm 

I should prefer to have some boy bend them 

As he went out and in to fetch the cows— 

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, 

Whose only play was what he found himself, 

Summer or winter, and could play alone. 

One by one he subdued his father's trees 

By riding them down over and over again 

Until he took the stiffness out of them, 

And not one but hung limp, not one was left 

For him to conquer. He learned all there was 

To learn about not launching out too soon 

And so not carrying the tree away 

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise 

To the top branches, climbing carefully 

With the same pains you use to fill a cup 

Up to the brim, and even above the brim. 

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, 

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. 

So was I once myself a swinger of birches. 

And so I dream of going back to be. 

It's when I'm weary of considerations, 

And life is too much like a pathless wood 

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs 

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping 

From a twig's having lashed across it open. 

I'd like to get away from earth awhile 

And then come back to it and begin over. 

May no fate willfully misunderstand me 

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away 

Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: 

I don't know where it's likely to go better. 

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, 

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk 

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, 

But dipped its top and set me down again. 

That would be good both going and coming back. 

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. 

    - Robert Frost

You Got the love ( Intro scene to the movie “Youth”)

https://youtu.be/vANd9o22j5Y

Onward - Mark Kozelek , (Youth)

https://youtu.be/GKC5prLGXx0

Just  - D. Lang (Youth)

https://youtu.be/WTGtgvMQFm8

Simple Song #3 – D. Lang (Youth)

https://youtu.be/Bi-MrEoRMGk

Youth – The Movie Trailer

https://youtu.be/gZTp4nRrRaU

For a member of the band….

“One day I will find the right words and they will be simple”

        - Jack Kerouac

“The only truth is music”

       - Jack Kerouac

Amdg

Copyright All Rights Reserved 2017 JF Sobecki LLC 

The Martian Perspective and Poetry

Don’t use the phone. People are never ready to answer it. Use poetry. ―             

                                 

                                               - Jack Kerouac

“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”

                

                                        -  Joseph Campbell

He once wrote,

              Martians used to preach

              Of days they would reach the earth

              Now they’ve given up

              Finding what it is worth.

He was wrong, there had never been a serious consideration for Martians to explore the earth as it looked like a dying planet. “How did they get such an impression?” , he wondered. And so the journey began for him to comprehend how this perception could evolve.

Out came the yellow high-liter with the history and sociology books as well as the laptop googling thousands of trends and facts about the evolution of earth’s inhabitants their attitudes, institutions, political structures, beliefs, culture and changing. Charts, graphs, narratives and all types of analytics were created to visually illustrate the doors of perception. Then a wave washed him up onto the shore of enlightenment.

“Poetry! They have never read or heard our poetry! Poetry is the language of our hearts and souls, the living proof of the existence of the sacred within sentient beings. ”

He also thought of music as the voice of the divine but continued to wonder what the Martians might think of earth and her inhabitants if they read and heard our poetry, as it was the root of what would become songs. “Poetry is evidence of: our compassion and passion; our love and desire for peace and concern for the common welfare; our devotion to and appreciation for the beauty and wonder of all that mother nature provides; our humility and hopefulness; our resilience; our ability for our own spirits to transcend our vessels of clay; and, our enlightenment of and faith in a great magnificence who is the reason for every aspect of the universe.”

But with this awareness he also became depressed, as he knew that many in this world had lost their sense of poetry and most poets had been minimalized or trivialized. Many contemporary poets had lost their voices or desire to have their inner voice heard. Some "would be poets" had been led to join that carousel where reaching for a brass ring became the objective rather than being an authentic channel of passion. Furthermore many had become silent out of fear of being ostracized for being a voice from the wilderness. There were some champions who would fight the good fight but they seemed to die young.

“Maybe if I just continue to encourage others to allow their authentic selves and voices to flourish through poetry, that may be enough . No need to worry about the Martian perspective now as we all have a greater challenge at hand…to save ourselves.”

                         Understanding Poetry – Dead Poets Society

 https://youtu.be/LjHORRHXtyI

                   Immediately NOW watch the next click…don’t wait!

                   Why do we Read and Write Poetry – Dead Poets Society

  https://youtu.be/R_zsMwCOoEs Poets Society

Now Some things for pilgrims and Martians to consider

                      Song Of Myself – From Favorite Poem Project

                                              https://youtu.be/hPLHVQpm1JA

               We Real Cool – From Favorite Poem Project

                                              https://youtu.be/_t_kkjAhDNw

                            The Favorite Poem Project

                            http://www.favoritepoem.org

"Poetry is an act of peace." – Pablo Neruda

"To be a poet is a condition, not a profession." – Robert Frost

Introduction to Poetry

BY BILLY COLLINS

I ask them to take a poem   

and hold it up to the light   

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem   

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room   

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski   

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope   

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose   

to find out what it really means.

Soneto de la Noche

By Pablo Neruda

Cuando yo muero quiero tus manos en mis ojos:

When I die, I want your hands upon my eyes:

quiero la luz y el trigo de tus manos amadas

I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands

pasar una vez más sobre mí su frescura:

to pass their freshness over me one more time

sentir la suavidad que cambió mi destino.

I want to feel the gentleness that changed my destiny.

Quiero que vivas mientras yo, dormido, te espero,

I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep,

quiero que tus oídos sigan oyendo el viento,

I want your ears to stiil hear the wind,

que huelas el aroma del mar que amamos juntos

I want you to smell the scent of the sea we both loved,

y que sigas pisando la arena que pisamos.

and to continue walking on the sand we walked on.

Quiero que lo que amo siga vivo

I want all that I love to keep on living,

y a ti te amé y canté sobre todas las cosas,

and you whom I loved and sang above all things

por eso sigue tú floreciendo, florida,

To keep flowering into full bloom.

para que alcances todo lo que mi amor te ordena,

so that you can touch all that my love provides you,

para que se pasee mi sombra por tu pelo,

so that my shadow may pass over your hair,

para que así conozcan la razón de mi canto.

so that all may know the reason for my song.

- Pablo Neruda, trans. Nicholas Lauridsen

Choral representation of the above poem

https://youtu.be/GVZJVgX5jN4

Ulysses

BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

  

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades

Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known; cities of men

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

         This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil

This labour, by slow prudence to make mild

A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees

Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail

In offices of tenderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods,

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

         There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Amdg

Copyright 2016 All Rights Reserved JF Sobecki LLC