MAY '02

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."
...................from WALDEN (Or Life In The Woods)..................
............................Henry David Thoreau,1854...........................

APRIL '02

Musée des Beaux Arts
by W.H. Auden
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
December 1938

DEC. '01:

imagine

imagine there's no heaven
it's easy if you try
no hell below us
above us only sky
imagine all the people
living for today...

imagine there's no countries
it isnt hard to do,
nothing to kill or die for
no religion too
imagine all the people
living life in peace...

imagine no possesions
i wonder if you can
no need for greed or hunger
a brotherhood of man
imagine all the people
sharing all the world...

you may say i'm a dreamer
but i知 not the only one
i hope some day you'll join us
and the world will be as one
 

John Lennon

MAR. '01:

This life is yours
Take the power to choose what you want to do
and do it well
Take the power to love what you want in life
and love it honestly
Take the power to sail the deep blue seas
and be a part of nature
Nothing is too good for you
you deserve the best
Take the power to make your life
Healthy
Exciting
and very happy while you reach for your dreams.

Bonnie Lee, Atlanta, GA

OCT. '00:

"G.D.--I believe you're doing a great thing with Rand and your move toward sailing. The older I get the more I realize that our hearts are capable of leading us to great beauty. As I said in my story about the river, we must choose between the life we live and the life we dream. The life we dream, the life of the heart, is full of great mystery and sadness, but for those who know it there is no other way. We are all there, we idiots on makeshift boats, and it's always been a pleasure sharing the ride with you and now Rand. I look forward to that day when I have the honor to be a passenger on the boat that sails for children. As always, your buddy--Mello."

Robert A. Mello, Author