Martin Luther King’s words still resound with relevance 50 years after his murder on April 4,1968. At the time he was preparing to lead a protest in Washington called the ‘Poor People’s Campaign’. Bruce Witzel’s memorial, featuring quotations and photographs, is well worth a read.
Category: Quotations
Fire star
At night we trace stars
for predictions of fate, as
we orbit the sun.
Basking in solar rays, we
crave its riches buried deep.
©2016 ontheland
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The thoughts in this poem (tanka) were inspired by words attributed to Neil de Grasse Tyson:
Aliens might be surprised to learn that in a cosmos w/ limitless starlight, humans kill for energy source buried in the sand.
∼Source: quoted and attributed to Neil de Grasse Tyson, American astrophysicist in “Rays of solar hope among fossil clouds of gloom” by Jeremy Miller, in Resurgence & Ecologist, Issue 291, July/August 2015
Also in response to Colleen’s Weekly Tanka Poetry Prompt Challenge #11: ‘stars’ and ‘fate’.
For as long as the moon shall rise
Layers
A grownup is a child with layers on.—Woody Harrelson
I’m a child
with layers on
like an old tree
rejoicing
in clay-sand-humus
tickling the sky.
©2016 Ontheland
This is my final quote in a series of three about growing old—preceded by ‘Mind over matter’ and ‘Fifteen years from now’. I would like to extend my thanks to Kim Russell who invited me to join in with a Three Day Three Quote Challenge. If you enjoy poetry and creative writing by accomplished authors, I highly recommend her blog: Writing in North Norfolk.
My challenge nominees are:
Rules of the challenge:
- Post three quotes over three days.
- Name three nominees each day (no repetition).
- Thank the person who nominated you.
- Inform the nominees.
Fifteen years from now
∼
To me, old age is always fifteen years older that I am. —Bernard Baruch
So true. However, putting humor aside, there is no harm in recognizing that you are an elder. I use this word, to level rather than elevate, to counteract the sense of embarrassment that sometimes links with old age. As we age some challenges fall away and others take their place. The longer I can take care of my own physical needs and have a clear mind, I’ll be grateful.
Many thanks to Kim Russell of Writing in North Norfolk for inviting me to participate in her Three Day Three Quote Challenge. This is my second quote post—the final one will be up on Thursday. My nominees are:
Deirdre–Words are all I have
Amy–Bedlam & Daisies
Rules of the challenge:
- Post three quotes over three days.
- Name three nominees each day (no repetition).
- Thank the person who nominated you.
- Inform the nominees.
Mind over matter
∼
Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
∼ Mark Twain
Another Three Day Quote Challenge has come my way—this time, from Kim Russell of Writing in North Norfolk. If you haven’t yet read her exceptional poems and other writing, you might want to visit her blog. Thank you Kim for providing me with an occasion for sharing a series of quotes on aging that I was saving in anticipation of my milestone birthday last month.
I have entered a new decade and I do agree with Mark Twain, it ultimately ‘doesn’t matter’. Yet matter does enter the picture and sadly, for some of us more than others. Aging is uneven. I have realized that part of the ‘game’ is recognizing and accepting deterioration and limitations—and living with them. The other part is using both mind and matter as much as possible—that’s living after all!
My challenge nominees, should you be so inclined, are:
Rules of the challenge:
- Post three quotes over three days.
- Name three nominees each day (no repetition).
- Thank the person who nominated you.
- Inform the nominees.
New epoch in geologic time: Anthropocene
Earth and its epochs extend so far back in time that it is beyond comprehension. I recently came across a TED post that talks about a movement afoot among geologists and other scientists to identify a new Epoch in Earth’s geology marked by the impact of man. It would be called the Anthropocene. I highly recommend that you take a look at this fascinating and readable article by David Biello, an award winning journalist and science curator for TED. He has a new book, coming out in November,”The Unnatural World,” which discusses Anthropocene.
To set the stage I have gathered some background tidbits:
- Earth is about 4.54 billion years old;
- If introduced, Anthropocene would end the Holocene Epoch which began 11,700 years ago;
- Holocene began after the Ice Age. The Ice Age extended from 110,000 years ago to 12,000 years ago;
- The timing of the new Epoch is still being debated, but there is strong support for 1950, as the time when significant changes in air, soil, water, and rocks (caused by human activity) could first be identified.
…the point of naming the Anthropocene is not to memorialize humanity in the rock record. The point of the Anthropocene [‘new age of man’] is to recognize people’s world-changing impacts in the hopes of persuading us to take a slightly less anthropocentric approach. People need to make room for plants and animals if we want to avoid another mass extinction…. The world’s pollution problems have to be addressed together, or they won’t be solved at all.
In short, the point of an Anthropocene is to prove that humanity is actually not like a glacier or an asteroid. We can choose to do better…
——From TED Ideas article: You have been living in a new geologic time all along, by David Biello
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Thank you for reading my Sunday quote post, number 3 in a series of three for a Three Day Quote Challenge. I would like to thank Louise Farrell of Fantasy Raconteur for inviting me. I love this challenge as it gives me a nudge to do a kind of post that is rewarding.
As part of the challenge tradition I invite three other bloggers to join in. Today I choose three nominees who as usual I ask to not feel in any way obliged to follow through. My nominees today are:
A Cooking Pot and Twisted Tales
The ‘Rules’ or suggested guidelines are:
- Thank the person that nominated you.
- Post 1-3 quotes each day for 3 consecutive days.
- Nominate 3 bloggers each day to participate in the 3-day Quote Challenge.
- Have fun. Bend the rules.
We protect World Peace by supporting Climate Action
We attribute ancient hatreds, religious intolerance or simply greed to many of the current conflicts. However, from desertification to eroding shores, climate change has intensified resource scarcity, poverty and hunger. Vast new waves of migration may have a political ignition, but the fuel is climate change, from Africa to Asia. Somehow, even Syria’s conflict can be attributed to the spark of longer-term drought. No continent has been secure, including the more developed ones.
Often war and terror are seen as greater global threats than climate change. This view does not recognize that environmental stress fuels violent conflict. How? Global warming creates stressors such as drought, famine, insect infestations, destruction of food supplies and destruction of shelter (think floods, fire, hurricanes). Such disasters lead to mass migrations. As Muhamed Sacirbey notes in the above quote, hunger and dislocation are sparks that ignite conflict.
Hunger—conflict—depletion of arable land—conflict—water shortages—conflict—failed crops—conflict—homes destroyed by natural disasters—migration—friction between migrants and natives—conflict—military zones—persecution—migration—conflict. Food, water, arable land, and places to live are essentials that people fight for in times of scarcity.
A United Nations Global Trends Report released in June 2016 states that worldwide forced displacement has reached an all-time high: in 2015, one in every 113 humans (65.3 million people) were displaced from their homes due to violence and persecution.
Addressing climate change by reducing carbon emissions promotes World Peace.
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Thank you for reading my Sunday quote post, number 2 in a series of three for a Three Day Quote Challenge. I would like to thank Louise Farrell of Fantasy Raconteur for inviting me. I love this challenge as it gives me a nudge to do a kind of post that I enjoy.
As part of the challenge tradition I invite three other bloggers to join in if it strikes their fancy. Before I list the nominees for this week, I would like to talk about using quotes in posts. When I first started blogging I was mystified by references to quote challenges until I discovered what it was all about from reading blog posts, particularly those linked to Writer’s Quote Wednesday Writing Challenge, hosted by Colleen Chesebro and Ronovan Hester. There are many approaches to using quotes in posts, for example:
- posting a quote and letting it speak for itself
- posting a quote and expanding on its meaning or significance, sometimes with information about the author
- posting a quote to supplement photography (some people come up with amazing combinations)
- an introductory, tone-setting quote
- a closing quote
- using a quote as inspiration for poetry or prose
- using a quote to enrich the body of a post
- using your own words as a quote!
If you have a secret desire to try a 3-quote challenge, let me know and I will nominate you next week. For today I have chosen three nominees who I ask to not feel in any way obliged to follow through—not all bloggers enjoy this type of challenge. My nominees today are:
Magarisa of Becoming Unstuck
Yazek of Successia
The ‘Rules’ or suggested guidelines are:
- Thank the person that nominated you.
- Post 1-3 quotes each day for 3 consecutive days.
- Nominate 3 bloggers each day to participate in the 3-day Quote Challenge.
- Have fun.
Expanding ethics to preserve all life
The natural world surrounding us is simply the context in which human affairs take place. Our relations with this more encompassing community are completely different from our relations to the human world. In the presence of the human, the natural world has no rights. We have a moral sense of suicide, homicide, and genocide, but no moral sense of biocide or geocide, the killing of the life systems themselves and even the killing of the Earth.
It may not be that our ethical systems are lacking–I was brought up in the Christian tradition and can remember a hymn honoring ‘all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small.’ Most spiritual traditions respect the natural word. The problem is a lack of application—in laws, everyday lives, industry, and commerce. Pressures of survival, materialism, consumerism and greed have been major forces propelling us to where we are today .
Thomas Berry, a Christian theologian whose life spanned the last century into this one (1914-2009) pointed out a major discrepancy in our sense of morality. There is a general consensus that killing humans is wrong, but there has not been general agreement that humans shouldn’t destroy animal communities or pollute the air, soil, and waterways. He refers to the missing crimes as “Biocide” (destruction of life) and “Geocide” (destruction of the earth).
One could argue that we haven’t been that successful in protecting human life either. Even though direct killing is sanctioned, there are major loopholes for tolerating harm: lives are shortened significantly in a society that tolerates high levels of poverty, homelessness, toxins in the air we breathe, water we drink, and food we eat.
Putting aside the “we don’t practice what we preach anyway” argument—the observation that as a society we don’t truly love our neighbours, much less the environment—I do agree with Thomas Berry’s implication that the melting of ice caps, dying off of whole species of animals, flooding of coastal communities, famine due to drought etc, are direct results of our industrial consumer lifestyle. It may take a major revamp of society’s ethics in order to correct our errors and move forward.
Thomas Berry concluded his talk with these hopeful words:
Perhaps a new revelatory experience is taking place, an experience wherein human consciousness awakens to the grandeur and sacred quality of the earth process. Humanity has not participated in such a vision since shamanic times, but in such a renewal lies our hope for the future for ourselves and for the entire planet.
∼
This is day one in a Three Day Quote Challenge that I will be posting on three consecutive Sundays. I would like to thank Louise Farrell of Fantasy Raconteur for inviting me to participate back in early June when life was extremely busy. It still is, but I’ve taken the time to accumulate a connected series of quotes that I would like to post. I like this quote challenge as it gives me a nudge to put together a type of post that I enjoy. As part of the tradition I invite three other bloggers to join in if it strikes their fancy:
Jenny Spencer of SpoonGood
Dorna Hainds of Madasahatter572
Brianne Turczynski of Miss Sissinghurst
The ‘Rules’ or suggested guidelines are:
- Thank the person that nominated you.
- Post 1-3 quotes each day for 3 consecutive days.
- Nominate 3 bloggers each day to participate in the 3-day Quote Challenge.
When you fall, stand up
In response to Writer’s Quote Wednesday Writing Challenge Survival theme I offer advice and a poem, followed by words from Neil Gaiman and Bryant McGill.
My advice, “When you fall, stand up and know that you are human”, applies to mistakes and blunders large and small. There is a place for responsibility, remorse, and taking steps to avoid repetition, but my message today is about self-forgiveness rooted in humility. Just as we might forgive another person without forgetting a wrong, we can forgive ourselves for past mistakes. In order to live and thrive we need to move beyond self-condemnation:
∼
I tripped,
fell, and looked up
stars flickered forgiveness,
and purred, ‘fallibility is
human’.
∼
Neil Gaiman ‘is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films.’
‘When you accept fallibility within yourself you become more perfect.’ Bryant McGill ‘is an American author, aphorist, speaker, and activist in the fields of self-development, personal freedom, and human rights.’
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