Vineyards
Category: books
Book to read
I’m reading Moby Dick, part of a group-read through dolcebellezza, bloggers reading together a selected book. In the month of August Moby-Dick was the choice. One can follow the link:book
Walking
I have been walking for one hour everyday for two and a half weeks now. Napa River is near our neighborhood. I follow a loop that takes me about one hour. I stop a lot to observe, take photos and talk to people I meet. Many of them are other walkers and most are walking their dogs.
The photos I posted are some of those phots taken during my walk.
Walking can be a form of calming hour. A new article sings praises for walking:walking
My Thursday
During the last few days I have been walking to the river early in the morning.The day is cool and I need only a light jacket. Today is one of those days.
The path to the river has newly planted bushes like the English laurel. They replaced wild palm trees that become diseased easily.
The regular fishermen have not arrived. There are two gentlemen on the riverbank who are enjoying a conversation and drinking coffee.
The front lawns of the houses along the street are well groomed and have a lot of flowers. I don’t know their names.
I stop often to look at the flowers and take photos. If the fishermen are around I usually talk to them. Very casual conversations. Nothing deep or esoteric.
My walk takes me about 60 minutes because I stop a lot. Sometimes I carry a book and sit on an empty bench to read. I write notes in my mobile phone.
I’m reading currently 3 books: Aristotle’s Way by Edith Hall, Love and St. Augustine by Hannah Arendt and Dancing on the Spider Web, a new novel by Sasha Paulsen, the feature editor of our local newspaper, the Napa Register.
Late in the vine
When I am old and grey
Grapes allowed to remain on the vines
Pages worn but alive
Weather drawn but sweet
Ancient and not too poor in wisdom
Will you sit by me?
We can listen together
Stories of your wandering.
And are you still playing
Beethoven’s later piano sonatas?
Winter weather
I have been reading a lot of philosophy related books lately. I’m enjoying what I’m learning but my poetry is suffering.
My reading choices are not conducive to writing images. Even the fiction I’m reading at present relates more to philosophy and arguments.
For now I don’t have poetic ideas or poetic moments. It’s a whiteout like the weather in the East Coast.
A Cup of Tea
Studies show health benefits of tea
Blessings to the heart and mind
The little cakes and finger sandwiches
Adorned the tastes and elegant hour.
The particularities heal the blemishes
Of the day. The conversations float
While minutes pass hurdles and eddying currents
There two varieties of tea. They grow well
On high elevations and warm climate
Holding a cup of tea is an acquiescence
To its fragrant flowers and seed bearing fruits
Harvested with care not to damage the leaves
Sometimes we venture beyond our boundaries,
Beyond the branches and buried roots
Like breaking away from intimacy and uttering
The first word. Shadows climb up stairways
And do not return. But ideas return, loiter around
To solve the first equation ushering more ideas.
Optimism can lead a way of learning
A sip here, a sip there and ready to fill
The cup again, hot, vibrant and healthy taste,
Green, black, yellow, rich in flavonoids
And polyphenols, sovereign with its own species
And millions of followers: honest, loyal, calm.
A Leaf of Excitement
The rain started last night and continued today
I didn’t walk to the river this morning
Instead I went to the Wellness Center for a workout.
This afternoon I was in the Study Center
In the library helping students with their homework.
Afterwards I attended my Rotary Club meeting.
This evening I started reading Conversation With Friends,
A novel by Sally Rooney.
The little things that make life interesting.
We can measure the day by how long it rained
HOr by how happy is the student after
She understood what she was studying for days.
A green leaf started sprouting from a seed
Aboard the lunar lander at the surface of the moon.
That’s a living plant listening to Moonlight Sonata.
My Rule of 6 Plus One
Once upon a conversation.
It’s New Year. How do you spend your day? I was asked.
I spend my day like a homeschooler.
Why is that?
Being at home (I’m retired) I’m like a homeschooler. Home is freedom from school, from work.
13 years ago I accidentally logged on a blog of Melissa Wiley, a homeschooler mother. She teaches her children at home. She “borrowed” a Rule of 5 by Charlotte Mason of what to teach children every day. Melissa added one more activity and made it a Rule of 6. Here is a link: Rule of 6 to her original post.
Here is the First Five:
•Good books
• Imaginative play
• Encounters with beauty (through art, music, and the natural world—this includes our nature walks)
• Ideas to ponder and discuss (there’s Miss Mason’s “something to think about”)
• Prayer
Melissa Wiley added: Meaningful work to make it her Rule of 6.
For my part I added one more activity: Writing to make it my own Rule of 6 plus One.
I don’t know how I stumbled on her blog/website. Since that time I used her homeschooling plan of “Tidal Learning” for my daily activities.
As a way of my modification or explanation:
The Good books can lead to Great Books.
The Imaginative play can include Physical Exercise, Tai Chi and Yoga.
Encounters with beauty can also involve Dramatic Art, Poetry and Dance.
Ideas to ponder and discuss include Creativity and Innovation, “things we think about”
Prayer also can mean Silence and Solitude
Meaningful work includes philanthropy of time and work.
Writing ranges from doodling to writing novels.
My Rule of 6 plus One
Good books
Imaginative play
Encounters with beauty
Ideas to ponder and discuss
Prayer
Meaningful work
Writing
I hope you and I can live a simple and harmonious life every day.
Yesterday Mrs. Abstract and I spent the New Year with our friends. We dined on Tuscan Bread Soup, lobster tails, French baguette and bubbly.we watched the movie, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared.The movie was funny and with ridiculous sequences of events that ended well.
I wish always to reach the age of 100 just to experience what it feels like to be a hundred. With my cancer, though on remission, and my 4-coronary-artery heart bypass my chances of reaching 100 is slim. My goal every day is to remain healthy.
I’m reading coincidentally a book, The Hemlock Cup, Socrates, Athens and the Search for a Good Life.
I just finished reading an essay, A Meditation in a Toolshed, by C.S. Lewis. He explains that “One must look both along and at everything,” to know the truth.
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