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I got a pingback on yesterday’s post and it got me to thinking about another item between family members and friends.

Dreams flow well in letters, don’t they? I think we’ve lost part of that connection, especially because of the internet. No anticipation flutters our heartbeat when we think of getting an email. That sensation came when we waited for real mail, on paper, with ink covering the page like so much ivy growing out toward us, carrying dreams, images, and speculations. Secrets huddled within the lines of word leaves, providing us with tiny thrills and mysteries.

These were the reasons we wrote to cousins, best friends on vacation, or pen pals. Most of that is gone now with the arrival of internet. That loss is what I regret, for now, instead of picking up fountain pen and paper, I reach for a keyboard, and the thought and care that would had gone into writing to a love one has dissipated into a mist of remembered pleasure.

Can you imagine how much of our world’s history, knowledge, and philosophy would not exist if it weren’t for written letters?

Much of the ancient world would be a mystery to use without those letters between philosophers and historians. The treatise is a simple extension of the letter. Those documents formed the very foundation of what we know as literature, scientific notation, constitutions, etc.

Family members wrote to one another, knowing that they might never get a response from the one who’d moved so far away, or the one who’d stayed in the old neighborhood/country. Hope clung to fragile ink-covered pages, written with love, despair, anticipation, disgust, and all the rest of human emotion. Did those pioneers recognize the tradition they followed from a thousand years before?

As we move further into a new world that disdains the tangible personal letter, we need to look back for a moment to imprint in our minds what we’re giving up. Physical remains of letters have survived for thousands of years. One badly timed lightning strike can wipe out years of work or correspondence.

Mother Nature doesn’t care about electrons that floated around or are stored in the ether around us. A scrambled atmosphere can do as much damage in the long run as a flood. All communication is vulnerable to disaster, computer driven no less than the Pony Express.

At the end of the day, though, we choose to use our time to communicate with dreams, aspirations, and secrets from one person to another, or merely to open a channel and punch keys.

The individual decides. Quick and dirty or thoughtful and fulsome? When is the last time letters arrived in your mailbox?

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As we get ready to change to our new format, I wanted to reflect on how we came to be, remember what we've done together, and just pause to appreciate our journey. I made this for all of you. Thank you for being a part of rgz. Thanks for the lemonade. :~)

Feel free to repost!

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RJinx once rescued me from the Titanic.  True story.

Faceboook, 7:30AM: I have 15 hours stretching ahead of me that require strenuous physical activity, mind-numbing patience, and an endless supply of energy and positive attitude. It's going to be tough, but I can do it. (Right?) Feel free to contribute support, jokes, funny comments, and/or tequila.
                RJinx: Hey, you must be a parent. ;-)
                Look at it like surfing.
                Just ride the wave.
                If you fight against it you will drown yourself
                and keep yourself from getting where you need/want to be.
                If you just ride the wavy and
                let its energy guide you, you will reach the shore....
                namaste, grasshopper.
       

8:50 AM: Pick up Bluejay, a 10-yr-old student who is not my biological child.
8:54 AM: See cop lights flashing quietly behind me.
                ME: Good morning, officer.
                Nice, slightly hot OFFICER: I pulled you over for speeding back there. Um, did you know you were going 53 in a 40 zone? Do you have any reason to need to go that fast?
                ME: Um,  no good reason.
                OFFICER: Well, I'm going to let you off but I will need to see your license, insurance and registration.
                ME: Of course, of course. (rummaging in the Car That Vommited VBS Supplies) Um, I'm afraid I can't find my registration.
                OFFICER: Okay, well, sit tight, let me check this out.
                (minutes pass)
                OFFICER: Well, it seems as though your insurance card isn't current. See here? It says expires 2009.
                ME: Oh, well, that's just the card. The insurance is current.
                OFFICER: Thing is, I do have to give you a ticket for that.
                ME: Of course, I understand.
               (minutes pass)
               OFFICER: Did you realize your driver's license is expir

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Dear child, welcome to this world, in all its beauty and savagery.  You'll hear the phrase "A picture is worth a thousand words" (and then your da will show you a picture and teach you how to write flash fiction about it.)  This picture by Maxfield Parrish is my (half of a) thousand words, and here's what they are:

I wish for you strength, in big things and small.  An elephant cannot carry its own body weight, but an ant can, and ten times more.  May your body be strong, to run and to jump and to climb mountains.
 
I wish for you freedom, to discover yourself and be what you choose.  I hope you will make mistakes, and learn from them.  I hope you will know the feeling of wind in your hair as you run through the grass, and that that feeling will find its way into your soul.

I wish for you love, to give and to be given. I wish for love to make you its conduit - love poured in and love given freely out, made purer by the filter of your heart. 

I wish for you patience, for you to retain a sense of the movement of the eternal that you no doubt experience as you sleep an infant sleep.  I ask you to be patient with your parents, who love you and do everything out of that love.  Be patient with yourself. There’s no finish line, only the steps from one reality to another.

I wish for you impatience, for you to reject assumptions of inequality, to challenge with fierce heart the oppression of so much of humankind, of art, of faith.  Learn only the impatience that is born of seeking justice.

I wish for you faith.  May you ever feel the embrace of the Divine.  May you experience the Divine for yourself, choose to believe in the One who exists beyond us but loves in and around and through us.

I wish for you wisdom.  Sadly, you will lose your infant wisdom.  But its impressions remain inside of you.  As you grow, you’ll find pieces of wisdom, and you’ll know where they naturally fit inside the leftover spaces of yourself. 

I wish for you bravery.  Against the dark, against spiders, against aggressive four-legged creatures and bright, bold winged things.  Have courage during storms, both inner and outer, and remember that while slaying a dragon is sometimes necessary, it’s never, ever easy.

I wish for you thankfulness.  For a moment, for a lifetime.  For the smallest gesture and the grandest gift.

I wish for you books.  Skyscrapersful of books.  From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

I wish for you inspiration - from art, from music, from science, from history.  A sense of the world as it is and as it was and as it could be.  A dream, that captures your passions and changes when it needs to and propels you into places of risk and ambition for the sake of the dream.

I wish for you peace.  Peace in your world.  Peace in your soul.  A calm, quiet sense  of “forever” and the luxury to languish in it.  Peace on the journey, and peace to where, eventually, you will cross into yet another reality, surrounded by the same love in which you entered this one.

You are loved.  Be well.

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Here are a few of the ten or more steps I have been taking to finish work on an owl painting. The last image in the series is close but not quite at the finishing stage. There were many painted versions before the last image evolved. There will be more definition in the final painting and the dark lines will most likely be painted over or blended away.

©GingerNielson2007

And here's a bit of trivia. Did you know that the Sooty Owl has four talons and that he /she can use them with two in front and two in back or spread them all out separately to grab at its prey with each one spread north, south, east and west... just like a nifty set of ice tongs.

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