Monthly Archives: August 2017

Aug 30 Rutabaga

Wednesday,   August 30 “Though your seeds are tiny you grow with fierce will” My sibs and are going to take advantage of what looks to be a rain-free day and check out the many ways the city interacts with … Continue reading

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Aug 28 A Falcon soaring and a treasure in a field

Monday, August 28   –  Gerry  Stockhausen’s birthday week — in memory People tell stories about what they see, and hear, and touch, and people listen.   This ancient rhythm weaves humans together over the centuries.   At universities we … Continue reading

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Friday August 25

Friday, August 25 The Jesuits here spent last evening and today at the Manresa Jesuit Retreat Center (c. 10 miles north of campus)  to tell stories about the hard and lovely moments of the past year, + house keeping practices … Continue reading

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Aug 23 – Mary Oliver “Wild Geese”

Wednesday, August 23 How many times might someone learn the vast depths of one’s soul?  – –  Resilient, brave, playful, patient, accessible.   Maybe I should write “re-learn” rather than “learn.”  In these very early days of a new academic … Continue reading

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Aug 21 Dunya Mikhail – a poet, a historian

Monday, August 21 “watching the fragments of our first dreams for a lifetime. My hand on the map as if on an old scar.” Every so many weeks, I look to a poem by Dunya Mikhail, a fellow citizen of … Continue reading

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August 13 to 19 – a week of hard news

Friday, August 18 These past few days I’ve read several news reporters who wrote something like this: “I will be so glad for this week to end!  So much hard news,  so confusing and frightening as well.  It’s not clear … Continue reading

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Aug 16 – University Convocation

Wednesday, August 16  “the step you don’t want to take”  David Whyte Convocation gathers women and men who come to work at our 3 campuses, week in and week out, to take the thousands of small steps that make a … Continue reading

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Aug 14 – Kenji Miyazawa 宮沢 賢治 “Be Not Defeated by the Rain”

Monday, August 14, 2017    “Never angry Always smiling quietly Dining daily on four cups of brown rice Some miso and a few vegetables” In late August 2015,  Japanese poet Kenji Miyazawa met me for the first time when I … Continue reading

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Aug 11– a poem of courage and beauty written in 1921

Friday, August 11   “Young as she is, the stuff Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy: I wish her a lucky passage.” Richard Wilbur wrote this poem about his young daughter, as she labored … Continue reading

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Aug 9 — “your graceful, confident shrug and twist . . . “

Wednesday,  August 9, 2017 —  “then it is that the miracle walks in, on his swift feet . . .” Is it harder to stand still in a place of grief or a place of joy?   Last evening, on … Continue reading

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