Christmas Bells

I HEARD the bells on Christmas Day

    Their old, familiar carols play,

        And wild and sweet

        The words repeat

    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

    And thought how, as the day had come,

    The belfries of all Christendom

        Had rolled along

        The unbroken song

    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

    Till ringing, singing on its way,

    The world revolved from night to day,

        A voice, a chime,

        A chant sublime

    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

    Then from each black, accursed mouth

    The cannon thundered in the South,

        And with the sound

        The carols drowned

    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

    It was as if an earthquake rent

    The hearth-stones of a continent,

        And made forlorn

        The households born

    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

    And in despair I bowed my head;

    "There is no peace on earth," I said;

        "For hate is strong,

        And mocks the song

    Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

    Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

    "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

        The Wrong shall fail,

        The Right prevail,

    With peace on earth, good-will to men

-Longfellow

pause player by hitting the snowflake

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.  

His house is in the village though;  

He will not see me stopping here  

To watch his woods fill up with snow.  

My little horse must think it queer  

To stop without a farmhouse near  

Between the woods and frozen lake  

The darkest evening of the year.  

He gives his harness bells a shake  

To ask if there is some mistake.  

The only other sound’s the sweep  

Of easy wind and downy flake.  

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,  

But I have promises to keep,  

And miles to go before I sleep,  

And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost

“Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.”
― Hamilton Wright Mabie

St. Andrews Day

La Naomh Anndrais

He was poor, yet always seemed to be giving something away;
a stranger, yet everyone was his friend;
no longer young, yet happy-hearted as a boy;
plain and peculiar, yet his face, beautiful

Louisa May Alcott

If you are a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax golden tales to spin. - Shel Silverstein

I got off that boat with nothing but my dancer's belt and a tube of chapstick!
~waiting for guffman

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.  ~Henry David Thoreau

present

When I meet you, in that moment, I'm no longer a part of your future. I start quickly becoming part of your past. But in that instant, I get to share your present. And you, you get to share mine. And that is the greatest present of all...

 This isn't my first time here. This isn't my last time here. These aren't the last words I'll share.

"Old Eyes" Sarah Kay

Pilgrims Progress

“a man there was, though some did count him mad, the more he cast away the more he had.”

― John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress

Make Your Own Luck

Dances - first week of May

Dance

“Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.

― Rumi