Did You Miss the Winter Solstice?

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Stylized picture of the sun setting over mountains above snowy pine forestI did. A mention on the radio towards the end of the day brought it to mind. It used to be that I would really look forward to Dec. 21 as the day when we’d start gaining instead of losing daylight. This attitude was especially true back when I was working full time. It was so depressing to drive home in the dark! You don’t have to participate in some kind of pagan ritual to take note of this day and to celebrate it in some small way, even if it’s only to remind yourself of its significance and to start noticing the earlier and earlier time of sunrise and the later and later time of sunset.

I wrote about Garry Kasparov’s book on Vladimir Putin yesterday, and what he said about winners and losers also applies, in a sense, to the idea of the solstice. The minute you win, you start losing. The minute you lose, you start working to win. So it is with the two solstices: the summer solstice, June 21, is the longest day of the year, so where do you go from there? Only towards the darkness of winter. In the midst of winter, though, you hit that longest, darkest day–and there’s no place to go but up, nowhere to go but spring.

And isn’t the illustration for today’s post seriously cool? I get my images for the most part from a site called Pixabay. Their images are totally free. (You do have to be sure you don’t click on the images marked “sponsored images,” which are from a company named Shutterstock, I’m guessing a parent company. You do have to pay for those. I got the image for this website’s header from Shutterstock.) If you need images for a website or other application, give them a try.

​And pay attention to the seasons!

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Required Reading for All Lovers of Democracy

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Winter is Coming, Why Vladimir Putin and the enemies of the free world must be stopped, by Garry Kasparov book cover Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped by Garry Kasparov, available in several formats and multiple outlets. Visit the author’s website at www.kasparov.com/.

Not exactly a happy book! I’m cross-posting this from my “Personal and Political” blog as my book of the week. But no one can be truly happy in a fool’s paradise. If I could, I would require that every single US citizen sit down and read at least the introduction to this definitive book, written by former world champion chess player and now political activist Garry Kasparov. I would also require listening to this episode of Slate’s ”Trumpcast” in which Kasparov is interviewed about his opinions regarding Donald Trump. As he says, “I hate to say ‘I told you so.’” And his perspective on the nomination of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State is indeed frightening. (I know I keep using that word in my political posts, but I don’t know what other word to use. “Disturbing” is too mild.)

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Post-Party Analysis

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pile of utensils, ingredients, and bowls on a cluttered kitchen counterAlthough I’ve temporarily discontinued my posting on the “Intentional Hospitality” blog I’m still cooking away. Last night I provided the desserts and punches for my church’s Christmas banquet. This turned out to be yet another one of those “I-thought-I-was-going-to-have-an-easy-time-of-it-but-I-was-wrong” episodes in my life. I had made my famous orange-almond biscotti before the Cherry Creek Chorale’s concert over a week ago with the intention of putting them together into tree shapes held together by frosting, but I just ran out of steam and time, so I ended up putting the baked biscotti into the freezer with the intention of building the trees for this party.

 I kept thinking, ‘I have the biscotti made, so all I have to do is make the cranberry tarts and the chocolate peppermint crunch cookies. I’ll do that Sunday afternoon and still have time to clean up the kitchen.’ What was I smokin’? I worked like a dog all afternoon just to get everything made and still ran out of time for making the frosting for those blasted biscotti. Some very helpful people who came early pitched in, and one woman suggested that we could stack the biscotti plain. I wish I had a picture of the beautiful platter she made. People were saying, “You’re doing Jenga!” It was great.

Well, all was well in the end. I could have done a lot more prep on Saturday and saved myself having a nervous breakdown Sunday. But the important thing is that everything was on the tables, ready to go, and that people had a good time. I’ve now gotten through my two big parties for December, but there’s more to come on the family front. My sister- and brother-in-law get here Friday, and we’ll have many get-togethers during the week they’re here. So I’ll have lots of opportunities to either a) procrastinate or b) be proactive (pro-acticate?).

If the items mentioned above sound intriguing, I do have posted recipes for three of them. Here are the links:

​For the biscotti trees: “A Beautiful Celebratory Dessert”

For the cranberry tarts and pink egg nog: “Second Time Is the Charm!”

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The Tyranny of Possessions

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PictureSalisbury House, EnglandI was reminded of this principle awhile ago when I was in an enormous house for a meeting.You walked into the front door and there you were in a foyer with one staircase curving down into a family room with a pool table and a fountain in the floor and the other curving up to the main level with another fountain, this time as a sheet of water flowing down a glass wall. I sat in the beautiful living room facing a fireplace with some kind of fancy poured-concrete mantel and huge shelves on either side of it going all the way up to the very high ceiling, with decorative objects and photographs. All I could think was, ‘How on earth do you get up to that top shelf to dust?” It wouldn’t be a matter of a stepstool; more of a stepladder. Maybe even a crane.

Before I go on, I do want to make it clear (not that anyone reading this has the faintest idea whom I’m talking about) that I’m not in any way criticizing the people who own the house. I have no idea how they use it or what their rationale was for buying it. I really enjoyed being there, and I came home fired up with the intention of keeping my own house a little more pristine.

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And the Author of the Week Is . . . Ayn Rand.

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Picturephoto credit: Wikipedia

Normally I keep political commentary off of this page, but since I usually have a book, podcast or film of the week I thought I’d showcase a writer who may be helping to shape the worldviews of people who will be shaping our world for the next four years. So far the incoming administration is planning to nominate huge Rand fans as Secretary of Labor, Secretary of State, and head of the CIA. The PEOTUS names Rand as a favorite of his:

The president-elect said this spring that he’s a fan of Rand and identifies with Howard Roark, the main character in “The Fountainhead.” Roark, played by Gary Cooper in the film adaptation, is an architect who dynamites a housing project he designed because the builders did not precisely follow his blueprints. “It relates to business, beauty, life and inner emotions. That book relates to … everything,” Trump told Kirsten Powers for a piece in USA Today. (from an article in the Washington Post)

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“Gloria” Was Glorious!

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I wasn’t able to post this until today because of some technical issues. What a total joy to participate in this concert! I did indeed try to be mindful throughout. Don’t know that there’s much more to say. If you live anywhere near Greenwood Village, CO, come to our next concert! I’ll start posting about our new music in January. In the meantime, take a look at what you missed.

Are You Bearing an Unnecessary Forgiveness Burden?

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Cow struggling to pull a cart loaded with sacks For some reason I’ve been thinking lately about the whole concept of forgiveness, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s a lot of inaccurate info out there on it. (Astounding, I know.) How does this apply to happiness, you ask? Forgiveness, rightly understood, is a key component. It is impossible to be happy if you’re walking around stewing about something somebody did to you.

You also can’t be happy if you’re carrying around load of guilt because you’re trying to forgive a wrong in the wrong way.

So let’s take a look at three correctives to these forgiveness mistakes:

 1. You can’t forgive on the behalf of someone else.

Remember way, way back when the “Access Hollywood” tapes surfaced, with a ten-years-younger Donald Trump bragging about assaulting women?

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Three Partially-Read Books

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stack of 3 books beside sunflowers

Sounds like a ringing endorsement, doesn’t it? But I do recommend the ideas in all three books, and if you take a look at one or all of them you may find that you want to finish it/them. I feel sometimes that certain books make their main point in the introduction and then the rest of the book is just amplification that goes on too long, and that’s my opinion of two of these selections. The third one is really excellent all the way through (or at least as far through as I got) and so meaty that I couldn’t listen to too much of it at once, Then my checkout expired. I do plan at some point to go back to it and finish.Here they are in alphabetical order. The Moore book is the “meaty” one. They’re all available as audiobooks at my library.

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Adventures in Mindfulness, Part 2

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snowy pathway through pine treesI wrote back in October about my attempt to fully experience the experience of singing in the fall concert of the Cherry Creek Chorale, how I made a little pact that I would keep reminding myself about the present moment, and how greatly I enjoyed that Saturday night experience. (Hey, guess what? We have another performance this week! And it’s going to be great! Follow the link to buy your tickets.)

 

 

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Time to Learn Emotional Hygiene?

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There’s a program on NPR called “The TED Radio Hour.” I was listening to it yesterday as I drove across town to a concert. Fascinating! Here’s the entire TED talk that’s referenced in the show. Note here that I (although perhaps not Dr. Winch) would make a distinction between mental/emotional health on the one hand and spiritual health on the other. But I found his ideas to be very intriguing. Be sure you listen to the whole thing. He has some great stories!