2015-08-02T11:00:24-07:00

It was on this day in 1343 that the French nobleman Oliver de Clisson was convicted of treason and beheaded, his head hung on the gates of Paris. Many saw the trial trumped up, and the conviction and execution an act of injustice for which the king was directly responsible. No one more so than his wife, Jeanne de Clisson. She took her children to Paris and showed them their father’s head, returned to her estates, sold them, raised an... Read more

2015-08-01T11:16:38-07:00

Maria Mitchell was born on this day in 1818 in Nantucket, Massachusetts. The family were Quakers, and contrary to the larger community, they conformed to the Quaker sense that both female and male children should be educated. When she was eleven Maria’s father started a school and in addition to being a pupil there, she began to assist her father. Her passion was astronomy. And by the age of twelve with some assistance from her father she calculated the moment... Read more

2015-07-31T20:13:27-07:00

In the Diamond Sutra we are called to Think of this fleeting world as A star at dawn A bubble in a stream A flash of lightening in a summer cloud A flickering lamp A phantom and a dream. Or, as we learned it as children of the West Row Row Your boat… Read more

2015-07-30T13:46:39-07:00

Today in my Facebook feed I found that a favorite cousin-in-law had posted a delightful musical flash mob performance of Bolero performed by the Philharmonic orchestra of Toluca. It set me to thinking about this phenomena of the social media era. Turns out the term was coined in 2003, I believe by Bill Wasik at the time with Harper’s Magazine. He later described it as a “social experiment,” poking fun at conformity, and the quest for the next big thing.... Read more

2015-07-28T23:23:49-07:00

It was on this day in 2005 that Eris was discovered by a Palomar Observatory team led by Mike Brown. At first it appeared to be larger than Pluto (turns out that it has greater mass, but Pluto has a slightly larger diameter.) and was announced by NASA as the tenth planet. This sparked the conversations among the members of the International Astronomical Union that led to the new designation “dwarf planet” for these smaller spherical objects circling the sun,... Read more

2015-07-28T16:08:53-07:00

Jesuit, priest, and by my lights most importantly, poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was born in Stratford, Essex, in Great Britain, on this day in 1844. And if you have forty minutes… Read more

2015-07-27T12:44:10-07:00

It was on this day in 1940 that Bugs Bunny made is debut in the cartoon short, A Wild Hare. The world hasn’t been the same since… Merrie Melodies – A Wild Hare (1940) by Cartoonzof2006 Read more

2015-07-26T14:04:15-07:00

A couple of postings in my Facebook feed are linking to an article about suicide intending to guide people from using the term “commit suicide” to saying “died by suicide.” The reasoning appears to be at least in part motivated by the fact the term comes from a time when suicide was a criminal act, and so, “committing” was meant in that sense. The subtext is that the survivors are having a hard enough time without having moral judgment thrown... Read more

2015-07-25T11:43:51-07:00

Okay, I can’t really support the assertion that Sri Nisargadatta is in fact the Buddhists’ favorite Hindu. Maybe its Mahatma Gandhi. Or? Don’t really know. But, I do know we like to quote Nisargadatta. I was just reading a book on the practice of Jhanas, pretty inside Buddhist baseball. And there it was: Reality is not the result of a process; it is an explosion. It is definitely beyond the mind, but all you can do is to know your... Read more

2015-07-24T09:36:57-07:00

John Newton was born on this day in 1725. Impressed as a sailor, he worked on and eventually captained slave ships. Through a series of events he ended up being enslaved himself for a period of time, until he was rescued. It was on his voyage home that Newton had his Damascus experience. In fact while he had the experience he didn’t live into it for some time, even returning to the slave trade, which he continued to practice for... Read more

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