Sunday, January 1, 2023

2022 >>>>>>2023:

                         A collective big toast once it

                  'GAVE UP THE GHOST'

  Day 1(1) 23

       Cries, "Please look at me" !



[So] we've since bid Adieu

To the aged "double-2":

{A year rife with flaws,

 And crushing faux pas! }...

Out with the old

 And 'in' with the new:

Goodbye '22 !!!

Thursday, December 22, 2022

THE CENTAUR SEGUES... and parting is sweet sorrow

                                                                             


Oh! Exit jolly Jupiter!

 Now Saturn rules the stage;

The gloomy goat

Has crossed the moat;

  The heavens turned their page...


*************************


 
'Jesus was a Capricorn',

 [Such has thus been told];

The longest night

Was yesterday;

  Today is just as cold...

                -poem by L.P.-G.





Epilogue: The sun transits into Capricorn right about now [12/22] and Capricorn is ruled by the planet Saturn:



FACT: The planetary body of Saturn is purportedly a stern master of karma and, as the twinkling stars high above can tell you, enforcing karma is one of its consigned roles!


And...when Saturn conjuncts the moon between any two people, things can get a bit dicey: i.e., you see, Saturn is the one in charge of the karmic lesson (which the moon resents!).


Wednesday, December 7, 2022

12-7-2022: HAPPY B'DAY TO SOMEONE WE LOVE...

                                                                           


You'll always be the baby of the family no matter how old you become !!!


We hope tonight's dinner celebration gives

you many happy memories!

 



                December of '93 is just a blurry memory...

Monday, November 28, 2022

JINGLE ALL THE WAY: FASTER, FASTER!!!

                                                                         


 Once the last vestige of turkey leftovers make their way to the garbage disposal or trash can at the curb, the Christmas holiday preparations REALLY begin to gather SPEED... twinkling lights are ubiquitous; spruce, pine and fir trees stand at the ready: prearranged green-needle soldiers in sundry neighborhood lots. Sporting branches of supple emerald, they wait to be plucked up and carefully placed on vehicle roof-racks. Later, one can imagine they simply beam like the brightest north star while being adorned with ornament jewels and vivid ruby roping...








That said, over-the-top holiday mania is not entirely healthy. The amygdala in our brain gets over-stressed by the mental riding crop urging individuals to go 'faster, faster' in order to get 'more, more'. The FOMO mantra certainly needs a measure of quieting...


True, some can 'run faster' than others but if we spur our brain beyond its cognitive comfort zone, "bad things" can happen...


Mental exhaustion can be seen in real-time via the modality of fMRI. Not only that, over-taxed adrenal glands eventually hurl one into the gaping mouth of depression. Allen Ginsberg's poem HOWL begins as such: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness". It goes on to rant about individuals "dragging themselves" at dawn, searching for their "angry fix" of heroin. Too much but never enough ?


Yet, there most definitely ARE some quotes that express what the upcoming holiday season SHOULD bring to mind:

***************************


"As we struggle with shopping lists and invitations, compounded by December's bad weather, it is good to be reminded that there are people in our lives who are worth this aggravation, and people to whom we are worth the same."     - Donald E. Westlake

"May your walls know joy, may every room hold laughter, and every window open to great possibility."      - Mary Anne Radmacher

"Sharing the holiday with other people, and feeling that you’re giving of yourself, gets you past all the commercialism."    - Caroline Kennedy

"The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others' burdens, easing others' loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of the holidays."    - W. C. Jones

"The holiest of holidays are those kept by ourselves in silence and apart; The secret anniversaries of the heart."    - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Friday, November 11, 2022

THANK YOU... to the nth degree

 


LAND  OF  THE  FREE BECAUSE  OF 

     THE  BRAVE !!!

****************

There's also another thing for which I'm ever grateful:

as well as free and fair elections...


 "Democracy is the dent in the tall hat"


           *********************

... and on 11-11-1903, my maternal grandmother came into this world; 21 years later [to the day!] she would celebrate her wedding...