Guest guest Posted September 30, 2006 Report Share Posted September 30, 2006 Hmm, interesting that you should post this about Spring as we're moving into Fall and toward Winter. Methinks I detect something more for me to ponder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 30, 2006 Report Share Posted September 30, 2006 Dearest Alice - This is lovely, and so timely! Have you published it yet? And if so, where? > Now I am eighty-three as I write this. The snowdrops here in N Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 30, 2006 Report Share Posted September 30, 2006  Dear Alice , Your post made my day!!!! Thank you. We are starting life all over again here in this place of old people...amazing....we are old too??? Its lovely and the other people in the Woodlands where we each have a patio home are friendly and very nice! Unfortunately, we had much angst about our house which finally sold...only lost $45,000....or as ray tells everyone; "My wife gave the house away" Whatever...its finally off our hands, and we start in a brand new house in a brand new place. My hermit days seem to be over, and I am making a great effort to be "charming", "pleasant" and friendly...what a lot of work! But either i join much of the social life with ray or he will be a little unhappy...even learning or re-learning Bridge so one night a week I can make the 4th everyone is waiting for. Sacrifice, sacrifice :-) but it does keep me away from my books to an extent... Anyway, I loved your post! love, Toni a propos! Virtutes divinae in res diffusae Spring’s Message to Winter ALICE O. HOWELL A goodly time ago when I was flirting with middle age, I found myself marooned in a depressing month of early March. I was living in a flat over a garage on an estate on Long Island, finding myself single after a painful divorce from years of a tyrannical relationship. The job I loved was terminating and I had longings for an unattainable love. A fairly classic situation, I now realize. I wrote him letters and left them in the mailbox to be picked up by the postman. The mailbox was a long walk through trees and bushes and impossible to view from the house to see if the mail had come. On this particularly cold and grey morning I noticed some little snowdrops just emerging at the corner of the garage, but when I came home from work it began to snow again, and by the time it stopped there were three feet of it piled up everywhere. The ensuing blizzard paralyzed the entire area. I thought of and felt like the snowdrops. Locked at home, I wallowed in self-pity and despair. Two weeks passed. The snow melted. My friend telephoned once but no hoped-for letter appeared. And then on an absolutely miserable morning, after I had trekked twice for the mail and found none, I walked back, and under an apple tree I saw a wet, brown, wrinkled old apple sodden on the ground. It looked exactly the way I felt. So I took my boot-covered right foot and deliberately and petulantly smooshed it! When I looked at the collapsed mess, I received a shock. About five luminous black wet apple pips glared back at me! They were shouting as loud as they could “In the midst of death, there is life! In the midst of despair, there is a future! There is a purpose to all grief -- the fruit to come of it is wisdom.†I remember that moment well and can see myself standing hulked in my dark blue parka staring in wonder and amazement at this attack of insight. I bent down and carefully gathered the pips in my mittens and carried them back to the house only to be greeted by another miracle: the snowdrops had bloomed and were teasing me. “See, little as we are, we were stronger than those three feet of snow!†I carried in the pips and dropped them in a saucer. Then I went out and picked three of the tender snowdrops and put them in a tiny vase and brought both up to the small altar I had for meditation. I was both ashamed and filled with gratitude. I shed tears of relief. The next morning, the book I was studying quoted the alchemist Agrippa von Nettesheim†“Virtutes divinae in res diffusae.†“Divine forces are diffused in things.†Only a few years later, I was to lecture around the world and would write this quotation on the board the very first thing. The lectures led to my being invited to teach aboard a cruise around the Mediterranean to a group of two hundred people anxious to visit sacred sites in Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Greece, Jugoslavia and Rome. Among these passengers was the love of my life, Walter Andersen. With white hair on both our heads, we married and spent eighteen wonderful years together. He went on ahead of me eight years ago leaving me with a heart overflowing with love and joy. Now I am eighty-three as I write this. The snowdrops here in New England bloom in early April. As I looked at them the other day, they murmured, “See, we told you so.†Alice O. Howell is the author of THE BEEJUM BOOK, THE DOVE IN THE STONE, THE WEB IN THE SEA, and other books. Her latest is THE HEAVENS DECLARE::Astrological Ages and the Evolution of Consciousness. She lives in the Berkshires. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 30, 2006 Report Share Posted September 30, 2006 Dear Sam, I have always loved fall the best...just as i love sunset more than sunrise...one(I) is a little lonely as the day ends, and the and the year is half over..for what I really don't know, a small ache...yeh, well, I do know. Along with St Augustine, I feel at these times with him as he said; "our souls are lonely until they find their rest in Thee, O Lord" Sometimes I am sad and I don't actually know why...nothing changed in outer life...I guess its a yearning that aches. love, Toni Re: a propos! Hmm, interesting that you should post this about Spring as we're moving into Fall and toward Winter. Methinks I detect something more for me to ponder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 30, 2006 Report Share Posted September 30, 2006 Beautiful Alice. Simply beautiful. Greg _______________________________________________ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted September 30, 2006 Report Share Posted September 30, 2006 >I have always loved fall the best... Dear Toni, Me, too. I think October, when it's at its best, is the perfectest. *G* >Sometimes I am sad and I don't actually know why...nothing changed in >outer life... Again, me, too, and I don't know why, either. I used to try to figure it out but now if there's nothing immediately informative to explain it I just go with the flow knowing that this, too, shall pass. Sometimes it's just a sort of sweet melancholy that I accept as a part of life. Tears heal, whether they're tears of laughter or tears of sadness. Any maybe that's why my soul makes me feel sad, to heal something even if my ego consciousness isn't aware of what it is. Blissings, Sam Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.~ Rumi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 1, 2006 Report Share Posted October 1, 2006 Me too. I've started to think it's because I'm an introvert, and fall (and winter) seems to me to be an "introverted" season, when nature turns in towards itself to recharge its batteries to be ready for springtime. Kione -----Original Message-----From: JUNG-FIRE [mailto:JUNG-FIRE ] On Behalf Of toniSent: Saturday, September 30, 2006 1:50 PMTo: JUNG-FIRE Subject: Re: a propos! Dear Sam, I have always loved fall the best... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 2, 2006 Report Share Posted October 2, 2006 Snow drops and apple seeds amidst the cold blizzard and muck. What a meaningful and beautiful story about the paradoxes of love, loss, new life followed by true love. Thank you for sharing your hard earned loving wisdom dear one, as always.... Touched by your big heart, Ramona Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 2, 2006 Report Share Posted October 2, 2006 Have you published it yet? And if so, where? I think it will be pub in "Sacred Journeys"....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 3, 2006 Report Share Posted October 3, 2006 --- In JUNG-FIRE , " toni " <priestt@... > We are starting life all over again here in this place of old people...amazing....we are old too??? > > Its lovely and the other people in the Woodlands where we each have a patio home are friendly and very nice! > > My hermit days seem to be over, and I am making a great effort to be " charming " , " pleasant " and friendly...what a lot of work! But either i join much of the social life with ray or he will be a little unhappy...even learning or re-learning Bridge so one night a week I can make the 4th everyone is waiting for. > > Sacrifice, sacrifice :-) but it does keep me away from my books to a > Toni Wow. Bridge yet! I _yam_ impressed!! [?!] Thanx for this lovely cheery post, Toni. You put a beautiful " happy face " on your " new life " . So how many trees are still there in Woodlands? Y'r ever lovin' not quite reincarnated druid, marte > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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