Escher (Acrostic)

We used Escher’s work in the classroom as part of exploring points of view and perspective. Students would design and draw their Escher-like diagram. I found that the students enjoyed the opportunities to be creative and explore in ways that art reveals the world to us.

Memoirs of a Dragon's avatarMemoirs of a Dragon

Entwined sketches of Time’s sighing Muse

synchronous with Destiny’s voluptuous passions

chaos ….. balanced within each sepia pic

horizons ….. bound within a singular azimuth

escaping papyrus illusions ….. defined his Life

realities generously shared ….. using but pen and paper

sepiaescher

✩      ✫      ✬      ✭      ✮      ✰      ☆

Thanks again to ‘K’ at Kirsten Uninterrupted for introducing me to Acrostic and so many other Poetry Forms.

M.C. Escher – The Official Website is here.

Escher

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April Air Stirs In~

There are some great images of flowers accompanied by hopeful and spring-like quotes. Enjoy.

cindy knoke's avatarCindy Knoke

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April air stirs in
Willow-leaves…a butterfly
Floats and balances~
Matsuo Basho

Ranunculus (Please click to enlarge).

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The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year?
Mark Twain

Rock Rose

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Behold, my friends, the spring is come: the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love-
Sitting Bull

Rose of Sharon

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Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems~
Rainer Maria Rilke

Lions Ear

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With the coming of spring I am calm again~
Gustav Mahler

Foxglove

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April has Put a Spirit of Youth in Everything~
William Shakespeare

Peace Lily

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In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt~
Margaret Atwood

Mexican Evening Primrose

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Why not get some dirt on your hands, and everywhere else too???  Hope the joyful blooms of spring…

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Talk About Walking

When we were in Waterton Lakes National Park two summers ago, we were able to go down the big lake into Montana’s Glacier National Park and hike. As we got off the boat, we asked one of the guides where a good place to go would be. He asked where we wanted to go and I answered, “Just for a walk and see where it takes us.”

It would be difficult to get off the ‘beaten path as it is pretty rugged country. Despite this, I think some days it is nice just to wander and wonder where the day takes us. Philip Booth does a wonderful job reminding us there is so much outside these walls we think of as our life.

Where am I going? I’m going
out, out for a walk. I don’t
know where except outside.
Outside argument, out beyond
wallpapered walls, outside
wherever it is where nobody
ever imagines. Beyond where
computers circumvent emotion,
where somebody shorted specs
for rivets for airframes on
today’s flights. I’m taking off
on my own two feet. I’m going
to clear my head, to watch
mares’-tails instead of TV,
to listen to trees and silence,
to see if I can still breathe.
I’m going to be alone with
myself, to feel how it feels
to embrace what my feet
tell my head, what wind says
in my good ear. I mean to let
myself be embraced, to let go
feeling so centripetally old.
Do I know where I’m going?
I don’t. How long or far
I have no idea. No map. I
said I was going to take
a walk. When I’ll be back
I’m not going to say.

Immunization

These are behaviours and attitudes we should immunize ourselves against. Leading a thoughtful and mindful life can go a long way to helping in this work.

and life smiles's avatarand life smiles

ALS 30 03 14

Immunize yourself from:

Hatred

Jelous

Anger

Pain

Resentment

Pain

Worries

Regret

Guilt

Fear

Greed

By taking doze of Happiness, Peace and Self-content.

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One For Old Snaggle-Tooth

Quite often, I find that the difficult and trying times have proven more beneficial in my learning and forming as a human being. I think we pay more attention to what is happening when things are not going well. When we look back, we can see that it was for the better.

Suzy Hazelwood's avatarWordMusing

Charles Bukowski - Quotes - Goodness can be found sometimes in hell -001

.

I know a woman
who keeps buying puzzles
chinese
puzzles
blocks
wires
pieces that finally fit
into some order.
she works it out
mathematically
she solves all her
puzzles
lives down by the sea
puts sugar out for the ants
and believes
ultimately
in a better world.
her hair is white
she seldom combs it
her teeth are snaggled
and she wears loose shapeless
coveralls over a body most
women would wish they had.
for many years she irritated me
with what I considered her
eccentricities-
like soaking eggshells in water
(to feed the plants so that
they’d get calcium).
but finally when I think of her
life
and compare it to other lives
more dazzling, original
and beautiful
I realize that she has hurt fewer
people than anybody I know
(and by hurt I simply mean hurt).
and she has had some terrible times,
times when maybe I…

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Fire

Judy Brown wrote this poem and it is a gentle reminder of spaces in our lives that softly breath passion back into living. In these spaces, we lightly lay com-passion, integrating it in life and rekindling  passion.

Sabbath is an ongoing event. It is the daily pauses taken to be thankful and momentarily rest. It is meditation and prayer, listening not for certainty and answers, but more likely questions serving as life’s fuel. It is being in Nature and seeing ourselves as a small part of the larger whole.

What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.

So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.

When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
together, that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log
lightly from time to time.

A fire
grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way.

Toss Punishment – Keep Discipline

Although I am far from finished my first chapter in the dissertation, discipline, as a theme, is an overarching aspect that of good education. Both John Dewey and Alfred North Whitehead proposed that self-discipline in children and youth education. Teaching, as the last line in this post suggests, is vital to the forming process involved. Word and action is essential to teaching and learning.

Jackie Saulmon Ramirez's avatarParent Rap

By Jackie Saulmon Ramirez | March 26, 2014

If a parent punishes a child, what does a child learn from that?

When we teach children properly they learn self-discipline and self-restraint.

‘Punishment’ is a very ugly word and I wish parents would take that word, write it down on a sheet of paper, then wad it up and throw it in the trash because that is where it belongs. The word itself feels heavy on the heart and begs to be spat out of the mouth. When a child hears the word they feel dread and become less than they were before. I want parents to stop using that horrible word. The word I want parents to use in place of that word is DISCIPLINE. Discipline is lyrical, strengthening, uplifting and educating word.

When most parents say punishment, what they really mean is discipline; discipline means ‘to teach…

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Stalled Eternity Nonet

Today, as I walked back from my shopping trip. I noticed that trees were showing buds and, on my way to the library, the tulips are almost ready to blossom. We are on the threshold, at least in Spokane, of spring. It is snowy and cold in Edmonton. Winter is a guardian time when Nature revives itself through a dormant period. Spring is the threshold to Nature revealing itself through colour that emerges in Summer and departs in Autumn. Humans learn the importance of pacing themselves through Nature’s patterns.

Memoirs of a Dragon's avatarMemoirs of a Dragon

Grassland sentinel through harvests past

slumbering guardian of Fall

echoing autumnal toil

timbers of the heartland

prairie legacy

ghost in the veldt

summer sun

silenced

soil

Stalled Eternity

Photo from Eyes of a Dragon – Stalled Eternity

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The Low Road

I had to read this whole poem as the first stanza is scary, but Marge Piercy provides a message about the way we our Self.  We are never alone in this work even when we are separate in time and space. Humans connect in ways that make the person stronger.

When we care and act, the world becomes a different place. It is one act, one word, one smile at a time. It is a moment of mindful gratitude at a time. It happens when we are attentive, mindful, and present in the world and not as detached observers.

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.
Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again and they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know you who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

Knowledge !