Sorry Jeff, but I can't help but remember the time I dressed up as a "Ghost Rider" for Halloween and went through a local haunted house with several friends. We were about half-way through when some scraggly little bloody looking dude jumped out from behind a wall with a hangman's loop in his hand. Everybody else freaked out, but I just looked at him and said, "No need for the rope, little man, I'm already well-hung!"
(Poor kid didn't know whether to laugh, cry or blush!)
And there are those who love for the fact that they live. There are male and female siblings and then there are brothers and sisters and they are not always the same.
When a life is lived for the sum of its parts it can be said to be good. But when it is lived for simple pleasures, then somehow, the whole is suddenly greater than all of the sums of all of the parts and it is better.
When a trout stream is taken as a whole, it can be a beautiful thing. But when it is looked at from the perspectives of all of its parts then it is a myriad of beautiful things, each one a world unto itself.
I myself have had four male siblings since birth. Yet I continue to discover brothers and sisters that I never knew I had. Of my four brothers I suppose a couple of them are friends. Of my true friends - of which there are not many - all of them are brothers and sisters. I don't know if that is aesthetic or not, but I do know that it is beautiful. And an honor...
"There are times in life when, regardless of the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees in prayer" ~ Victor Hugo
It seems that there are circles everywhere in life and I have unwittingly completed yet another. But not really...
"Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand when I was young are dead but I still reach out to them.
Of course now I am too old to be much of a fisherman. And now of course I usually fish the big waters alone although some friends think I shouldn't.
Like most fly fishermen in Western Montana where the days are nearly arctic in length I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
My pleasure! The quote is one of my favorites and from one of my favorite books by this particular author.
I have an appetite for words and ideas even if my palate remains slightly less than refined and I have been lucky to find much food for thought while dining upon the simplest fair.
American Indians I've spent time with have spoken of "the Spirit which moves in all things" and how, occasionally, one can catch a glimpse of the spirit if the light is just right and your heart is just so and you are trying very hard not to watch for it. One of my earliest <known> glimpses involved a golden trout, a small waterfall, a bumblebee and a fist sized piece of quartz shot through with gold in a tiny glade in the Rocky Mountains. I won't say that it was the most magical moment of my life to this point for there have been several, each greater than the one before by simple fact of adding to the sum of experience. But even after 30 years I still have only to close my eyes to see that particular fish, blindingly brilliant in a mid-day sun, as he (or she!) lept from the lower pool to the upper whilst inhaling the bumblebee on the way. The shimmer left behind upon re-entry didn't go away and when I looked to see why my eyes still sparkled and burned I found the quartz that contained the gold which, ultimately, financed another 3 weeks in the area.
I have since seen (and caught) other trout; 'bows, cuts', brookies, browns and even a huge lake trout which rolled towards a tiny dry fly before giving me a look as if to say "Your heart couldn't handle it and no one would believe you anyway..." before sliding back into the depths, but when I hear the term "wild trout" it is that Golden one I think of. Suspended in mid-air high in the Rockies in the simple act of dining. That little gold trout, possessed of a brilliance born of simple reflection and refraction yet somehow more than just that. And the bumblebee. And the waterfall. And the dazzling show they organized for my personal benefit at the precise moment when my camera was empty and my soul needed most to see them...
It is one of the greatest pictures I have ever taken with my heart.
Uh... Thanks, but after last 4th of July I'm not allowed to drink on the house anymore. (Somethin' about firetrucks and beer and gunpowder and high places not mixing... )
True. But what rose to J.T. was landed initially with a lariat and a cell phone tower and has proven to be the greatest catch of all. Ain't never gonna' let this one go!
I'm sorry. I had to go back and re-read the questions to make sure they weren't "What's the score?" and "Hey Baby, ya' wanna'?"
...or were they?
The implication that the consequences of a gun shot or the introduction of one's self to a book can be far reaching has sustained the initial quote - A favorite of mine that I first read many, many years ago and continue to treasure for the wisdom of it's author.
As to my own take on the poem - who's author is also a favorite - Well... I believe I'll think about it some more... Maybe while I'm buying a lottery ticket or maneuvering an 80,000# vehicle through rush hour traffic in an attempt to reach my next destination safely and on time...
A young monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to helping the other monks in copying the old canons and laws of the church by hand.
He notices, however, that all of the monks are copying from copies, not from the original manuscript. So, the new monk goes to the head abbot to question this, pointing out that if someone made even a small error in the first copy, it would never be picked up! In fact, that error would be continued in all of the subsequent copies.
The head monk, says, "We have been copying from the copies for centuries, but you make a good point, my son."
He goes down into the dark caves underneath the monastery where the original manuscripts are held as archives in a locked vault that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years.
Hours go by and nobody sees the old abbot . . .
So, the young monk gets worried and goes down to look for him. He sees him banging his head against the wall and wailing.
"We missed the R ! We missed the R !
We missed the R !"
His forehead is all bloody and bruised and he is crying uncontrollably. The young monk asks the old abbot, "What's wrong, father?"
With A choking voice, the old abbot replies, "The word was...
I sometimes find that when I do something just for the sake of doing it, that it frees my mind to do other things. To paraphrase the end of an old saw; "...and who knows? Maybe, just maybe, the horse will learn to sing..."
I speak French just well enough to know that I have no business ordering from the menu in a French restaraunt. lol
But again, when viewed from different perspectives it can be both best and worst. I heard of a man who lived to do one thing and one thing only and he did it very well, perhaps better than anyone else. Day after day after day, rain or shine the same task. People thought his life boring as hell and suggested a change. He said "Why would I want to give up something I've spent my life working on perfecting just to pursue something that I'll fail at for lack of experience?"
The_Kansan Forum Posts (3,395)
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RE: Need to be educated please
Sorry Jeff, but I can't help but remember the time I dressed up as a "Ghost Rider" for Halloween and went through a local haunted house with several friends. We were about half-way through when some scraggly little bloody looking dude jumped out from behind a wall with a hangman's loop in his hand. Everybody else freaked out, but I just looked at him and said, "No need for the rope, little man, I'm already well-hung!"(Poor kid didn't know whether to laugh, cry or blush!)