I'm reading What Mothers Do by Naomi Stadlen and reflecting on her point that motherhood and mothering is now described in language more so than ever before--in books and online rather than through nonverbal communication in multigenerational families, as it was in years past--and yet there is such a lack of both words and stories that communicate the activities of mothering.
The Wisdom of the Fire, or Why Philosophy Won’t Make You Happy
Philosophy, the “love of wisdom,” can help us to live better, happier, and more fulfilling lives. As someone with a Ph.D. in philosophy, who has been reading and teaching philosophical texts on better living for over a decade, I have always wholeheartedly believed this claim—that is, until I went on a ten-day silent meditation retreat.
The world is better because this poem by e.e. cummings exists
i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any–lifted from the no of all nothing–human merely being doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
e.e. cummings
