I give up.
I don’t know why they have done this, but WordPress has removed a few more basic formatting options and I can no longer make this blog look the way I want it to.
I give up.
All future content will be posted exclusively to AbbiesTreeHouse.blogspot.com, and this blog will be abandoned in place.
Happy?
Excerpted from the article “Enjoy!” by Sandy Grant:
In our societies, we experience fabricated leisure – a kind of planned ‘free time’ that is sandwiched between typically unpleasant work times. And we are bombarded with advertisements that promise we will have a great time if only we get the latest phone or the latest computer game. Ours is a culture that, under the guise of consumption, actually counsels the renunciation of enjoyment. In such a society, wants come apart from pleasures. If you get an expensive car because that’s what you think your status requires you to have, that is not the same as enjoying it. The individual who succumbs to this idea does not relish owning the car. She just thinks she must have and display it. We inhabit a world that devalues pleasure while apparently serving it up in large doses. Rather than enjoyment playing a central role in people striving to become otherwise than they are, our culture works a strange ascetic turn. I am what I desire. I am what I consume. We are absorbed in an existence as desiring and consuming subjects, living as though we really are just those selves and no more.
You can read the whole article online at Aeon, HERE.
Shavasana
Shavasana
by Rosemary Wahtola TrommerOnce again, the field rehearses how to die.
Some of the grass turns golden first. Some
simply fades into brown. Just this morning,I, too, lay in corpse pose, practicing
how to let myself be totally held by the earth
without striving, how to meet the daywithout rushing off to do the next necessary
or beautiful thing. Soon, the grass will bend
or break, molder or disintegrate. Every year,the same lesson in how to join
the darkness, how to be unmade, how quietly
we might lean into the uncertainty,how generous the ground.
I found this poem at Jules of Nature, and she found it at Gwarlingo.
Eastern Perspective
If you have a few minutes, this video from the BBC is beautiful and thought provoking: LINK
(Blogger let me embed the video easily and for free, WordPress wanted me to buy an expensive upgrade. Bah.)
Thanks, but
And I commanded Joshua at that time, saying, ‘Your eyes have seen all that the Lord your God has done to these two kings; so will the Lord do to all the kingdoms through which you pass. You must not fear them, for the Lord your God Himself fights for you.’ ~Deuteronomy 3:21-22
That’s nice, I suppose, but I don’t really need any empires defeated at the moment. I could use a little divine help navigating the phone system at the credit card company.
Blocking
This has become a popular form of creative writing, and I’ve seen some beautiful poems and prose created by blocking selections of text.
I can’t do it myself, because marking in a book just feels wrong. But I enjoy seeing what other people created.
Bagism
Which led to this:
Bagism was created by John Lennon and Yoko Ono as part of their extensive peace campaign in the late 1960s. The intent of bagism was to satirize prejudice and stereotyping. Bagism involved wearing a bag over one’s entire body. According to John and Yoko, by living in a bag, a person could not be judged by others on the basis of skin colour, gender, hair length, attire, age, or any other such attributes. It was presented as a form of total communication: instead of focusing on outward appearance, the listener would hear only the bagist’s message.
shh
shhh, it’s fine is on the web HERE. The artist has chosen to remain anonymous.
It isn’t really a “comic” in the traditional sense. It’s more like illustrated commentary. I think its wonderful.
Midnight
Oh Midnight was the championHe is the only bronc I couldn’t rideBut now I hear old Midnights blindAnd rides little children for a dime
Little Heads Up
The domain AbbiesTreeHouse.com expires tomorrow.
I’m pretty sure WordPress will automatically redirect to the free version at AbbiesTreeHouse.wordpress.com, but you may need to update your bookmarks if you’re not using their reader.
The WordPress version is actually a mirror of my Blogspot version at: http://abbiestreehouse.blogspot.com
I never did figure out WordPress’s “Block Editor,” so I write everything over there and copy and paste it over here. Unfortunately, WordPress has degraded their formatting options, so it doesn’t always look right over here.
So it goes.
Gregory Blackstop
If you have eleven minutes to spare, there is a wonderful little video about autistic artist Gregory Blackstop online HERE.
You can view some of his artwork online HERE.
Domino
Pexiglass and resin with dominos
Romantic Friendship
From the article “What Is Romantic Friendship?” by By Sukaina Hirji and Meena Krishnamurthy, in The New Statesman:
What, then, were (Iris) Murdoch and (Philippa) Foot to each other? Close friends? Lovers? Murdoch herself grappled with this question. She wrote to Foot, “Sometimes I feel I have to invent a language to talk to you in, though my heart is very full of definite things to say. You stir some very deep part of my soul. Be patient with me and don’t be angry with my peculiarities. I love you very much.” It seems Murdoch herself didn’t quite know how to characterise her affections for Foot.
What they had may best be described as a “romantic friendship.”
There’s a certain segment of the population that loves putting labels on relationships: “I’m a polyamorous gender-fluid non-binary supercalifragilistic…”
But you don’t have to do that. You can just let it be.
I Will
Mona discovered this beautiful cover version of an early Beatles song, and shared it with me. Now I’m sharing it with you:
No Escape
“The problem begins with that word ‘world’. It means two such opposite things. The real one we cannot see. The invented one we can’t escape.” ~Richard Powers, The Overstory ©2018
Abbie's Tree House 