7 Thoughts on the Word, Moment

• I have been revisiting the music of Victoria Williams while spending moments in my studio, one song in particular has been resonating:  "This moment will never come again, I know it because it has never come before..."

• Today is Mosaic Woman's birthday, along with my father-in-law's, along with three of my friends.  Is there a moment in your life that deserves more celebration?  It took me many years to see it this way.  In two days I will celebrate that there has been another full year of moments in my life. 

• It is connected to .... 

  Latin mmentum, movement, from *movimentum, from movre, to move...        And thus moments have dimensions of motion and time and mass and direction.  Moments drive our lives to new places and various speeds depending upon the largeness (or smallness) of these factors.

• I am reminded of something Ani Difranco once said that went something like this... Records are called records because they used to be recorded moments in time.  That was before technology meant a tune we are listening to may have been recorded over many days and molded into one.

• Here is a moment in time  provided by a Flickr friend of mine

• "We do not remember days; we remember moments."  Cesare Pavese

• May we imagine life as time and space unfolding.  You and I are blessed to be there for the moments.  

Mystical Mondays ~ some thoughts on Wisdom

My time at Wernersville has introduced me to Lady Wisdom, and inspired my Sophia spiral design

Wisdom is there to bring us awe each and every moment of the day. I hope to be awed at least daily if not each moment. Maybe one day I will be so wise to live within the constant flow of awesome moments.

Last night it happened within a drum solo


WHEREVER YOU MAY LOOK

Wisdom is
so kind and wise
that wherever you may look
you can learn something
About God.

Why
would not
the omnipresent
teach that
way?

St. Catherine of Siena

Mystical Mondays ~ Rumi on humming and camels

Translations by Daniel Ladinsky

This is not the first statement I have come across on mindfulness that included flowing water, but the camel is new, as is the humming.  May the sound of a human humming forever bring us back to the present moment.  and I hope that we one day notice this humming, which emerges from those who are truly aware, flowing from our true selves.

THE CHANCE OF HUMMING

A

Man

standing on two logs in a river
might do all right floating with the current
while humming in the
now.

Though

if one log is tied to a camel,

who is also heading south along the bank –at the same pace-

all could still be well

with the

world

unless the camel

thinks he forgot something, and

abruptly turns upstream,then

uh-oh.

Most minds

do not live in the present

and can stick to a reasonable plan; most minds abruptly turn

and undermine the

chance

of

humming.

Rumi

Rumi also recommended that we practice looking at those we love who have uttered something nonsensical with eyes that make the speaker feel brilliant.  Good luck.  Margaret and I have been failing all week, but laughing along the way.

Science Mondays: The Garden Cart Disaster

photo by Victor Yelevich

So, I have a garden cart at work (like the one imaged) and a student was using it to deliver some plants donated by a staff member.  Another student volunteered to return the empty and started in that direction pulling the cart behind him as I followed him.  A student called my name and I kept walking as I turned my head.  The student pulling the cart stopped and without looking pushed on the cart to take a different route to the tool shed.  I fell to the ground and later filled out an injury report.

The next day I used this in two lessons.  As I reviewed the gardening safety rules, I came upon the one about how awareness leads to less injuries.  And with much joy and volunteers playing the part of the student with cart, I told the story.

Earlier in the day I used it to teach Newton's Laws.

A human in motion will remain in motion unless an outside garden cart (force) is applied to it. 

Wrist bones in motion will want to keep moving even after one's hand hits the pavement.

A wallet inside one's pant's front pockets will accelerate when a forced is applied, even for the very short distance between wallet and thigh.  It will hit that thigh with a force dependent upon its mass and its acceleration.

That when the cart hit me, I also hit the cart.  This clearly showed the cart was well made since it remained standing and showed no signs of bruising the next day.  Maybe I was not accelerating fast enough and though this is an interesting hypothesis... it will not be tested.

that evening I chatted with the parents of the young man who took out this unaware dude and we joked about them returning home with stories of how I had a cast on my wrist and an IV in my arm as I stumbled about on crutches.  No cast, IV, or crutches were needed, but I did apply some ice to where one nasty bruise formed on my thigh.  And it hurts bad if I am foolish enough to put my wallet in that pocket.  But I am aware of the pain and move it to another pocket.