Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Working on Poetry



I am heading to the Charlotte Mason
Educational Conference
next
and preparing.
A Child's Life in Verse ~~yes,
indeed. Poetry. Jeannette and
I will be doing a workshop on what John
Keats said:

“Poetry should… should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.

Emily Dickinson

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.

From Leavings by Wendell Berry to get me
in the mood:


“Learn by little the desire for all things

which perhaps is not desire at all but undying love

which perhaps is not love at all but gratitude for the being of all things

which perhaps is not gratitude at all but the maker’s joy in what is made,

the joy in which we come to rest.”


Here is Wendell reading from his newest

poetry book : Leavings.

Longer reading here..

You learn alot from listening .




Thursday, May 26, 2011

Emily Dickinson



Makoto Fujimura spoke about
Emily at the IAM Encounters
Conference in March. Her
hyphens..........and he said
he would write on her.
Here is the link to
Refractions 36: "The Hyphen
of the Sea"- A Journey with
Emily Dickinson, Part 1.


He writes:
The first chapter of this series of Refractions online will focus on Emily Dickinson's reading of Matthew six, in which Jesus addresses "consider the lilies."


http://theooze.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/lilies_mako-236x300.jpg

Matthew :Consider the Lilies
Makoto Fujimura
Mineral pigments, Gold,
platinum, and sumi on
kumohada ~~~~ 60 layers
of finely pulverized minerals,
oyster shell white, and painted
with sumi ink that has been
cured for over a century,
as well as gold and platinum
powders, mixed with hide glue
to adhere the minerals to the
Japanese paper.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Finishing up ....literature and the year


American Culture .

Done. Tomorrow.
Project Evening was last
night and our students
were extraordinary.
As Arthur Quiller- Couch
(Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863-1944): Cornishman, man of letters, writer of novels and books for children, poet and anthologist, academic, lecturer, founding father of the School of English (sc. the Faculty) at Cambridge)
said:

“You are indeed the heirs of a remarkable legacy--a legacy that has passed into your hands after no little tumult and travail; a legacy that is the happy result of sacrificial human relations, no less than of stupendous human achievements; a legacy that demands of you a lifetime of vigilance and diligence so that you may in turn pass the fruits of Christian civilization on to succeeding generations. This is the essence of the biblical view and covenantal view of education."

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71NCV6MA02L._SL500_AA300_.gif

http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1181634885m/1173621.jpg


http://www.whsmith.co.uk/Images/Products%5C406%5C539%5C9781406539752_m_f.jpg


http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1237109857l/6338178.jpg


Monday, May 23, 2011

Summer is close


Hot.
It got hot and now
classes are ending this
week and last week. Piano
Recital awaits in June.

Today I'm so thankful for
a wedding two years ago:
oldest son! I'm so glad she
said YES!

If you are a Larkrise to Candle-
ford watcher or if you aren't,
watch the last minutes on
Thomas and Margaret's wedding.
( 7 minutes on to the end)
It will make your heart sing!




Friday, May 20, 2011

Favorite


The Book of Dun Cow
is now a favorite.
Walter Wangerin wrote
with such deep biblical
imagination and whimsy
that I couldn't put it down.

I wish my boys were still
young so I could read it
out loud to them. They
would have begged to
READ ON!

I still am pondering the
title. Any ideas?

"Under her breath she prayed
blessings upon the heads of the
Pins ( baby chicks of Chauntecleer)
continually. Continually?
Why, she had never ceased to pray
for them since their birth. With
words she was constructing a
defense around them, against
danger, against disease, against
ill will, misfortune. All alone,
in the secret of her soul, she was
building peace and their good
growth ~~ and that with words."

Thursday, May 19, 2011

IN....

Acts 17:28 (King James Version)

28For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Telling Stories



Sometimes in telling your
own story to your children,
you forget you haven't told this
one some-thing. That is what
happened today with Emma.
"You didn't tell me that?!!"
I won an essay scholarship to
Tobe CoburnFashion Merchandising
School in NYC on Madison Avenue my
Senior Year of college. So I spent
a "graduate" year in the Big Apple.
My childhood was spent on Long
Island and relatives still lived in
and out of the city so this was not
a huge leap. School paid for ; apt.
not but a year of living in the
Big Apple. Seems miles away
now.

I remember in "One Thousand Gifts"
by Ann Voskamp how she said to
tell your children "your story."
I've started doing that in letters
and even birthday cards. Today
one story came out that really got a
surprised bright eyed look!


Plus I am still enthralled with
The Book of Dun Cow by
Walter Wangerin. If you were
in front of me, you would hear
how much in love I am with
Chauntecleer and want to jump
into the book!



Monday, May 16, 2011

Asking for Poetry books

"Do you have any more of
Luci Shaw's poetry books?"
This was my Emma's question
last night. She went to bed with
a stack. I have loved Luci's poetry
for so long which is why there is a
collection on the book shelf.
I love her prose also.
Emma said : "I am copying
my favorites in my journal."
She started with the most recent
book which I just handed to her
and said READ. Find what you
like, copy, meditate, go into
the words. Then she came to
me with so much delight she
had to share the poem and her
thoughts.

http://www.lucishaw.com/images/books/covers/harvesting-fog_160.jpg

This most definitely underlines
what Charlotte Mason said in
her 20 Principles:

" We hold that the child's mind is no mere sac to hold ideas; but is rather, if the figure may be allowed, a spiritual organism, with an appetite for all knowledge. This is its proper diet, with which it is prepared to deal; and which it can digest and assimilate as the body does foodstuffs."

In The Teaching of Poetry to Children:

Parents do not realize what an enormous amount they put into their children's lives by filling their minds with good poetry.

Which makes me think of Anne:

“Don’t you just love poetry that gives you a crinkly feeling
up and down your back?”
—Anne, Anne of Green Gables, Chapter V

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Good advice from Alice

Well, actually the White Rabbit :

The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. “Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?” he asked.

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Common hours


~If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.~



Henry David Thoreau

Friday, May 13, 2011

Addiction


to these little chocolate berry candies that melt
in your mouth.
I put them in my bag during two graduations
last weekend. Evan graduated Sunday from
Appalachain State Univ. and the mountains
were singing.
I passed the bag around to share.
Got hooked on them!

Also hooked on reading ~~ have you read
this book?
It is one of the best books ( although I loved
rereading My Antonia and may post some
poems my students wrote on the characters )
that I have read in a long time.
It spans age levels and is excellent writing:
all about Chanticleer , a rooster. It is based
on Chaucer's Nun's Priest Tale. When you
fall into the tale of a rooster crowing, you
know it is good writing! When you want to
read it to a 3 year old and a 55 year old, it is
a good book!


http://christianaudio.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/D/u/Dun_Cow_large.jpg

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Monday, May 9, 2011

Thinking upon graduations.....

In our liquid time, art needs to become the aroma of bacon and eggs. It is not the art of the novel, but the art of the familiar that awakens our memory of the core essence of our lives, to the morning of our twelfth birthdays.

Makoto Fujimura

Friday, May 6, 2011

Weekend upon us

( Highlands, NC ...last June)

A tried saint, like a well-cut diamond, glitters much in the King's crown.

Spurgeon , Morning and Evening
( Evening ~~~ today)

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Commencement Address

Makoto Fujimura
at Belhaven University,
Jackson, Mississippi
this past weekend.
Read it on his
website.

" The Aroma of the New"

Willa Cather takes us to the West


Last book we are reading
in my high school literature class.
Amazing digging into the ideas just
in the beginning of Manifest Destiny
and immigrants and caring for
widows and orphans.

"The earth was warm under me, and warm as I crumbled it through my fingers...I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep."
Willa Cather

Monday, May 2, 2011

A new month



April came to an end.
May is here.
Graduations this week
for one son , girlfriend,
and nephews. College,
Grad School and Medical
School.

Celebrating
the end of one journey to
the next like the turning
of the calendar. A turn is what
is going to happen! Much
preparation to the turn in the
path.