Ptolemy's maps and real men who shop...
December 22, 2008
Well, THREE days until Christmas. TWO days until the real men out there start their Christmas shopping. Ha!!! No book news until the New Year probably, but there are things happening in America, and in France. I’ve been looking at 15th Century maps by old Ptolemy. Apparently, Columbus had a few of Ptolemy’s maps on board when he set sail. Apart from being useful for a guy who left his woman, his kids, his cat and the known world to sail into the unknown, these maps are stunningly beautiful. Why am I looking at maps? Well, you’ll see. Yes, I’m being mysterious as hell. More later…
6 Comments
1. Paulette had this to say: Dec 19, 2008 ~ 19:36 ~ #
Dear Urisk – I know the sorbet I received today was not written expressly for me, but therein lies your ability as a writer – to make everyone who reads your words feel as though as you had written expressly for them – as though, it were a message for them from your heart. It is a wonderful gift you have.
Tonight I pull out the good wine, my favourite glass and begin “the twelve things I carry with me” – because of you.
#1 There is a falling star, there… the other stars remain, bright and hard. The -35C air stops me, dead cold. The snow is that lovely sound only stars understand and deer don’t appreciate because it bites into their pads. Coyotes stop in their tracks as I crunch and creak towards them, and they laugh. I love it when they laugh, and they love to hear me.
Oh, wait a second…you don’t need to see all of this unfurl do you? I just want you to know how much I appreciate the fact that you love the mountains. The mountains see you.
Paulette
2. m. had this to say: Dec 20, 2008 ~ 18:39 ~ #
Thomas. Friend.
I went out to Chapters today to get some Christmas presents. It was tragic. The line-ups were huge, people were angry/annoyed/impatient/overworked and overwrought at spending beyond their means. It felt sad. And now I have the Christmas blues because it shouldn’t be like this, should it?
Anyway, I came home and lit the candles on the top of the Buddha you and Cindy-lou gave me for my birthday. So I just wanted to write and say thank you for that…something that means peace, means everything to me.
m.
3. thomas had this to say: Dec 22, 2008 ~ 10:05 ~ #
I think it’s a cool exercise to take a look inside and see what it is that we’re carrying. It’s not the things that are there every day, nor is it the people who are there every day. It’s the things under that first layer of your life. Maybe profound moments, maybe banal. But you still carry them for some reason.
All this, from the koan about the two monks who have a vow of silence, and of course, that they do not touch women…At the river, a women is desperate to get to the other side but is too weak to cross, so she asks one of the monk if he’ll give her a ride. The monk breaks his vow and says yes. She crawls up on his back, breaking the other vow, and they cross the river. Three days later, the other monk lambastes the first monk for breaking his vows. The first monk smiles kindly at his companion: “I put that woman down three days ago,” he says. “Why are you still carrying her?”
4. thomas had this to say: Dec 22, 2008 ~ 10:11 ~ #
If you’re reading this and wondering what the sam hill we’re talking about, well, you’re not on the sorbet list, and maybe you ought to be. Just click on: “The Sorbets” above, and follow the directions.
5. m. had this to say: Dec 29, 2008 ~ 12:03 ~ #
Hey,
Jean Vanier was named as the 2008 Nation Builder by the Globe and Mail. This is good to me and I just wanted to share it with you.
“How to find a world where the essential thing is to work for peace, to work to build something together?” – Jean Vanier