A Tidings of Magpies

"You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that."----- from Charlotte's Web I am a soul always drawn and fascinated by the idea of " A Year of...". A Year of Rumi. A Year of Calvin and Hobbes. A year cooking with Julia Child. A project that provides guidance for the year and a ruler we can measure inward growth in the course of our circle around the sun. One year, after an early marriage and an unsurprising--except to me--early divorce, I came across a book by Sue Hubbell titled A Country Year. I didn't plan for it to take a year to read, but it did. I only read it at night before I went t...

The Philosophy of Waiting Catch the moon in a jar. Be befuzzled.  The jay carries in its feather sky, a cloud, and deepest space. It is a tiger. Children cartwheel in the street. Old women shuffle behind their tiny dogs. Top-heavy hydrangeas thirst for light,  writhing Medusas among stones. They cannot decide what color to be,  so they alternate. We can learn from them. Can you recall the scent of herbs in winter? Life is interstitial. Don’t stub your toe. ---by Second Story Window's blog author