Category Archives: Quotes

How Not to Be Bored

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“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”

–A.A. Milne

What do you do on a restless Monday afternoon? You drive to Chesbro Reservoir to throw sticks and leaves in the water and watch them float away, pushed by the breeze. You gather more driftwood to expand your fairy land. You stand at the edge of the road and say hello to a few cows. (If the embedded video doesn’t show/work, here is a link to the movie.)

You make a silly face to try to get them to moo.

hanging out

On the way home, you stop at Spina Farms produce stand to buy fresh green beans and corn on the cob for dinner. You tell the lady at the counter all about the cows and how they were having quiet time. Then you head home, unload all the treasures, and make a fairy meeting room. (If the embedded video doesn’t show/work, here is a link to the movie.)

And you situate your gathered wood, ferns, and grasses just so.

fairy land, new construction

After all this, you eat five slices of whole wheat bread slathered heavily with real butter and a few green beans for dinner, followed by a brownie for dessert. Then you take a bath, listen to a story, and say farewell to the day.

Nature’s Humor

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Kids are cute, babies are cute, puppies are cute. The little things are cute. See, nature did this on purpose so that we would want to take care of our young. Made them cute. Tricked us. Then gradually they get older and older, until one day your mother sits you down and says, “You know, I think you’re ugly enough to get your own apartment.”

–Cathy Ladman

Extemporaneous Singing

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I overheard Bean singing a made-up tune while she was looking at the Olivia book while on the potty. I took notes. Sometimes it even rhymes! The stanza breaks are mine based on when I heard her pause. My Sunshine Girl is not only a scientist, but also a lyricist and composer! I can hardly believe she will turn four in less than a month.

You make me sneeze
because I’m allergic to you
the library’s a mess
I’m the best of the rest

Oh me-oh my-oh
You get the funnest job to do
Abe Lincoln brushed his teeth
But now he’s got ahold of you

You need a lot of things to do
You can do all the best things
But now you know what
Edwin knows the caden(?)

Now a ball a bust
Now it’s time to go read
Now you know what
I am not so sleepy
But now you gotta but

Now listen to me
Now the world be gone
Run run run run
Not so tired at all

We all ate the pizza
we wish we are ballerina
And now you got to be quiet
Because of the oldest day

You kept a lot of things
I wish I could do that
Now I really moan
Now I can’t really do that

I painted on the wall
Wubba wubba wub-ba
Now it’s time to take your bath
Now a time out floor
I was thinking of my dinner
Now it’s time for more

Now there’s only a few things
Just until your more
These are my books
These are my books

The Rabbit Trick

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A white rabbit is pulled out of a top hat. Because it is an extremely large rabbit, the trick takes many billions of years. All mortals are born at the very tip of the rabbit’s fine hairs, where they are in a position to wonder at the impossibility of the trick. But as they grow older they work themselves ever deeper into the fur. And there they stay. They become so comfortable they never risk crawling back up the fragile hairs again. Only philosophers embark on this perilous expedition to the outermost reaches of language and existence. Some of them fall off, but others cling on desperately and yell at the people nestling deep in the snug softness, stuffing themselves with delicious food and drink.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” they yell, “we are floating in space!” But none of the people down there care.

“What a bunch of troublemakers!” they say. And they keep on chatting: Would you pass the butter, please? How much have our stocks risen today? What is the price of tomatoes?

-Jostein Gaarder, Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

More On Transformation

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I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white
sails to the morning breeze and starts
for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until at length
she hangs like a speck of white cloud
just where the sea and sky come
to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says;
“There, she is gone!”

“Gone where?”
Gone from my sight. That is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull
and spar as she was when she left my side
and she is just as able to bear her
load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone
at my side says, “There, she is gone!”
There are other eyes watching her coming,
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout;
“Here she comes!”
And that is dying.

–Henry Van Dyke

Oh Yes!

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Life is the flower for which love is the honey.

–Victor Hugo

garden 3

Updated 7/11 (because comments are closed and I didn’t want to take the time to figure out how that happened): Perhaps the quote makes more sense if it reads, “Life is the toast for which love is the honey.”

How Dharma Works

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“It’s like the story of the ugly duckling. That’s a perfect example of how the dharma works. There was this bird that was born into a flock of ducks, and he was extremely ugly – so ugly he was barely tolerated by the mother duck. He was misshapen, he made funny noises that didn’t sound like a quack and he couldn’t waddle like the others. He looked big and clumsy, so he was constantly being teased and laughed at by the other ducklings. The more he tried to be like them, the funnier he looked, the more they laughed at him, and the more despondent and disillusioned he became. One day, while he was drinking from a pond, he saw another reflection that looked just like him. He looked up and saw another ugly ducking, and another and another. At that moment in time he realized that he wasn’t a duck at all. He was a swan. At that moment of realization he became perfect and complete, lacking nothing. There was nothing he needed to learn to do. There was nothing he needed to imitate. He was already perfect. He already knew how to be a swan. He was born with a swan nature. That’s what realization is — the discovery of what’s already there. It’s the discovery that you are a buddha, perfect and complete, lacking nothing. When you realize it, you are transformed.”

—John Daido Loori

We Are Always In Love

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Lift your arm. Let it fall onto your leg. Simple?

Is existence simple?

Consider that there are two massive objects: the earth — the whole big round rock of it — and your relaxed arm. The reality of the earth’s gravitational pull can be experienced in the heavy fall of your arm. Drop your arm again, cosmically this time.

OK, here is a less obvious thought: the mass of your arm is attracting the mass of the earth. Earth-arm force is just as reciprocal as earth-moon force, or in twin stars, star-star force. The earth is falling toward your arm as your arm is falling toward the earth. The attraction is mutual. It’s love.

There’s a binding force in nature, and gravity is its large-scale expression. Every time you drop your hand, or take a step, or hoe the garden, it is the experience of eternal love. Our bones and the earth are lovers; they embrace when we sleep, they mate when we die.

–W. A. Mathieu, The Listening Book: Discovering Your Own Music

Autumn Collage

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Bean started this by drawing branches with a green marker. Then we went to town with glue (I helped squeeze) and she chose what to put where and put stuff all over. We’re doing a lot of crafts lately, especially because Hub is out of town and we are together almost 24/7 (except for sleep).

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.

–Stanley Horowitz

autumn collage

To Love

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Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

–C.S. Lewis

Once Upon A Time

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Bean turned two-and-a-half on Monday. Tonight Bean wanted to tell a story. She dictated, and I wrote it down word-for-word. Are you ready?

Once upon a time there was a girl named Stacy the Firefighter. She had a dog named Sparky. He was a Dalmatian. They liked to ride the fire engine and make the siren go. Stacy squirted the whole building. Stacy was sad that she ran away. She was scared of a monster. The dragon gave her a kiss to make her feel better. She didn’t know that a monster would be the same as a dinosaur. Stacy got down and got hurt. She got hurt by a plant. Stacy poked her finger on it. It was a cactus. This time Stacy said ouch because her finger got hurt. And Stacy went all the way home and she told her Mom and Dad how much her finger hurted. Her Mom and Dad gave her a kiss to make it feel better.

The End.

–by Bean Harper, age 2.5 years

What an imagination!

She also, as of two days ago, decided to start potty-training herself. She has asked several times each day to sit on the potty, and she has indeed succeeded in using it each time. I do end up sitting on the floor reading her book after book for about 30-40 minutes, but whatever works to get her started! She is very interested in what comes out of her body and in the process of disposal, flushing, and washing her hands. It’s as if some switch got flipped internally. Other people in our lives have been eager to start training her, and I have gently held my ground; I felt forcing this was a recipe for frustration and failure. I had a feeling she’d proceed on her own schedule. It may not be fast and efficient, but I have a sense that it will be emotionally easier for us all.

being a silly monster

Being a silly monster!