God’s messages come like the dawn…

The Writer’s Almanac for Thursday, March 4, 2021


It was a quiet way


by Emily Dickinson

It was a quiet way—


He asked if I was his—


I made no answer of the Tongue


But answer of the Eyes—


And then He bore me on


Before this mortal noise


With swiftness, as of Chariots


And distance, as of Wheels.


This World did drop away


As Acres from the feet


Of one that leaneth from Balloon


Upon an Ether street.


The Gulf behind was not,


The Continents were new—


Eternity it was before


Eternity was due.


No Seasons were to us—


It was not Night nor Morn—


But Sunrise stopped upon the place


And fastened it in Dawn.

 
“It was a quiet way” by Emily Dickinson.

Public domain.

Hi Jeanne,

Archangel Haniel’s Message For You Today:

“I hear every time you ask for help and I respond. Remember that the help that comes might not be what you asked for but the help always comes in the form that’s for your highest good. You may feel you need something specific in order to achieve happiness but I ask you to have faith that you are always given what you need. If you feel lack right now, try to embrace what is available to you. What is meant to be yours is always there for you, just like I am.”

Your Angel Number For Today:

7 – Today’s number supports you as you continue on your path of spiritual development. Your spiritual wisdom grows when you begin to see that you are always cared for by the divine. Having trust in how your life is unfolding allows you to embrace the mystery of your faith.

Action Steps:
Write down what you ask your guardian angel for each day. Go back over your writings and notice what you’ve received in response to your requests. You’ll see a pattern of things always working out in the best possible way for you.

Affirmation Of The Day:

“As I ask my guardian angel for help in more ways than one, I release my idea of how it should be done.”

the bookmobile

Bookmobile
by Joyce Sutphen

I spend part of my childhood waiting
for the Sterns County Bookmobile.
When it comes to town, it makes a
U-turn in front of the grade school and
glides into its place under the elms.

It is a natural wonder of late
afternoon. I try to imagine Dante,
William Faulkner, and Emily Dickinson
traveling down a double lane highway
together, country-western on the radio.

Even when it arrives, I have to wait.
The librarian is busy, getting out
the inky pad and the lined cards.
I pace back and forth in the line,
hungry for the fresh bread of the page,

because I need something that will tell me
what I am; I want to catch a book,
clear as a one-way ticket, to Paris,
to London, to anywhere.

Joyce Sutphen, “Bookmobile” from Coming Back to the Body. Copyright © 2000 by Joyce Sutphen. Used by permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf Holy Cow! Press, http://www.holycowpress.org

Solstice family

June, 1989 Bill and Lavena Smith

Diane, Don, Paul, Ron and Roxanne Smith in 1989

 

Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day and longest night in the Northern Hemisphere.
Poets over the ages have proffered plenty of advice for the coming months.

 

Poet Pietro Aretino, born in the 15th century, said, “Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.”

William Blake wrote, “In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.”

There’s a Japanese proverb that says, “One kind word can warm three winter months.”

Emily Dickinson wrote, “There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons — That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes.”

Poet in Amhearst

Please go see this wonderful movie about Emily Dickinson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAqrpWW0Qdg

 

Emily Dickinson
It’s the birthday of the woman who wrote: “My Life had stood — a Loaded Gun — / In Corners — till a Day / The Owner passed — identified — / And carried Me away.” That’s the poet Emily Dickinson, born in Amherst (1830).
Emily Dickinson is one of the most-speculated-about writers in history — in popular myth, she was a virginal recluse who dressed all in white and then wrote passionate poems that were so unlike anything being written at the time. Relatively little is known about her life, and biographers often try to use clues in her poems to guess about her habits, personality, and sexuality. The Oxford professor Lyndall Gordon published a biography called Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds (2010).
In her biography, Gordon has one major theory that is impossible to prove: She thinks that Emily Dickinson was epileptic, and that this explains the strange jolts and bursts of her language. Gordon says that the drugs Dickinson was prescribed could have been used to treat epilepsy, and thinks that if Dickinson was epileptic, it would also explain her reclusiveness — she was scared that she would have a spell of a disease that was still very stigmatized in the 19th century.
Most of Gordon’s biography, though, is about the Dickinson family, one of the most prominent families in Amherst. Emily’s father was severe, with a strict moral code. She later wrote in a letter to a friend: “His Heart was pure and terrible and I think no other like it exists.” Emily didn’t learn to tell time until she was 15 because she was afraid to tell her father that she hadn’t understood his explanation of clocks. Her mother took good care of everyone but was not particularly warm, and she was more interested in cooking, keeping a clean house, and gardening than in the intellectual debates that the rest of the Dickinsons loved.
Emily had two siblings, Austin and Lavinia. Austin was the a handsome and accomplished man. Like his father, and unlike Emily, he was a very public person — he served on countless committees, oversaw civic projects and business ventures, and was deeply involved in his church.
Austin had a 13-year love affair with Mabel Loomis Todd, the wife of an Amherst astronomy professor, a talented and charismatic young woman. Austin and Mabel met in the Homestead several afternoons a week for sexual trysts in the living room, during which Emily was confined upstairs. Mabel’s husband knew about their relationship and was fine with it. Austin’s wife, Susan, knew about their relationship and was miserable because of it, but she had children and a reputation to uphold.
To make things even more complicated, Emily and Susan were very close. Susan was also a writer, and a good listener, and Emily gave her more than 250 poems over the years. Sue shared her library with Emily, and passed along her favorite books. Emily wrote more than 300 letters to Susan. But it was Mabel, Austin’s mistress, whom Emily never once met face-to-face, who ended up editing and publishing her poems and making her famous. The poet had only published a handful of poems during her life. After Emily’s death in 1886 at the age of 55, her sister Lavinia found nearly 1,800 poems in Emily’s desk.
When Mabel and Lavinia published the first book of Emily Dickinson’s poems in 1890, it went through 11 editions in a year and sold 11,000 copies.

from the Writers’ Almanac for Dec 10, 2019

Definition# 174 Magnitude

Inner manifests outer

Epigraph

The Outer from the Inner

Derives its magnitude —

by Emily Dickinson

walked the green grass

yesterday

piqued by

deer scat-

tip-toed

through

what nature

needed

and dropped

for me

the long winter long

April 7, 2015

Definition #35 Animation

Thank you Hanna Anderson for the GIF.

1510 How happy is the little Stone

by Emily Dickinson

How happy is the little Stone
That rambles in the Road alone,
And doesn’t care about Careers
And Exigencies never fears—
Whose Coat of elemental Brown
A passing Universe put on,
And independent as the Sun
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute Decree
In casual simplicity—

“How happy is the little Stone…” by Emily Dickinson. Public Domain