Thanks, Pat...just wanted to share one of my favorite poems with all Hedgehogs. "We only have a few moments", said famed evangelist Billy Graham. "The wonder of life is that it's so short." Help us stretch out our lives with your wonderful images, Pat. Time truly comes to a stop when I view your inspiring images. BTW, we don't have Blue Jays here in India, but we DO have something similar: a bird the size of a fat dove called the Indian Roller. I don't see much of them nowadays (maybe that's coz I'm in 21st century Delhi). I fear agricultural chemicals have decimated their populations, since they feed on insects on the periphery of farmlands. It's a curious bird, ugly and attractive at the same time. Attaching 3 photos by unknown lensmen, my thanks going out to them whoever / wherever they be for their stellar contributions, used non-commercially.

E Mang, you have a heavy burden. sending good wishes and prayers. Standing by people when they need a boost doesn't cost a cent. Let's all do it.

That bird is breathtaking. Thank you for introducing it to us. Wonderful photos.

Thanks, Pat...just wanted to share one of my favorite poems with all Hedgehogs. "We only have a few moments", said famed evangelist Billy Graham. "The wonder of life is that it's so short." Help us stretch out our lives with your wonderful images, Pat. Time truly comes to a stop when I view your inspiring images. BTW, we don't have Blue Jays here in India, but we DO have something similar: a bird the size of a fat dove called the Indian Roller. I don't see much of them nowadays (maybe that's coz I'm in 21st century Delhi). I fear agricultural chemicals have decimated their populations, since they feed on insects on the periphery of farmlands. It's a curious bird, ugly and attractive at the same time. Attaching 3 photos by unknown lensmen, my thanks going out to them whoever / wherever they be for their stellar contributions, used non-commercially.

May this wonderful poem give comfort and solace to all us hard pressed mortals when confronted by God's mysterious ways ...

http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.in/2004/01/shaper-shaped-harindranath.html

Shaper Shaped -- by Harindranath Chattopadhyaya
Guest poem sent in by Subroto Mukerji

(Poem #1438) Shaper Shaped

"In days gone by I used to be
A potter who would feel
His fingers mould the yielding clay
To patterns on his wheel;
But now, through wisdom lately won,
That pride has gone away,
I have ceased to be the potter
And have learned to be the clay.

In other days I used to be
A poet through whose pen
Innumerable songs would come
To win the hearts of men;
But now, through new-got knowledge
Which I hadn't had so long,
I have ceased to be the poet
And have learned to be the song.

I was a fashioner of swords,
In days that now are gone,
Which on a hundred battle-fields
Glittered and gleamed and shone;
But now I am brimming with
The silence of the Lord,
I have ceased to be sword-maker
And have learned to be the sword.

In by-gone days I used to be
A dreamer who would hurl
On every side an insolence
Of emerald and pearl.
But now I am kneeling
At the feet of the Supreme
I have ceased to be the dreamer
And have learned to be the dream."

-- Harindranath Chattopadhyaya
----------------------------------------------------
Harindranath was the quintessential Bengali intellectual -- wealthy, high born, highly strung, temperamental, eccentric, coruscatingly brilliant but (pardonably) egoistic, proud of his abilities, but wasting them by his self-destructive tendencies (such as his compulsive philandering). He was marvellously gifted with an array of outstanding abilities, mostly
underutilised. Artist, poet, dramatist, actor, philosopher and metaphysician, Chattopadhyaya is typical of the towering intellects that have emerged from urban Bengal over the last two centuries.

His father, Aghoranath Chattopadhyaya, was a scholar of
Sanskrit, Greek, Hebrew, Persian and English, and Harindranath 'caught the
bug' from him. The senior Chattopadhyaya was principal of the famous Nizam's college at Hyderabad, now capital of Andhra Pradesh state in India. His daughter (Harindranath's sister) happened to be Sarojini Naidu, the legendary 'Nightingale of Bengal', and herself a fine poet, freedom fighter and orator.

In later life--as worldly men are oft wont to do--Harindranath came face to face with his mortality and shed his egoism by an almost relieved surrender to the Supreme. This poem is a frank admission of his foolish obsession with himself, in sheer neglect of the Self. Humility followed Self-Realisation and brought with it a glimpse of the larger purpose of the Spirit.
It is this surrender of the towering genius of Harindranth before his Maker that forewarns all us mortals, so wrapped
up in our own puny little egos, that to shed the obsession with self is to enter into the arena of a Greater Consciousness, where a transcendent experience awaits the awakening soul.

God Bless you all...

Subroto Mukerji

I would like to share this with all of you. We have all lost people who are near and dear. It was in a book given to me by my husbands hospice nurse.

Written by Henry Van Dyke.

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: "There she is gone!"

"Gone where"

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at that moment when someone at my side says: "There she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: : "Here she comes!"

And that is dying.

I think that is so comforting, makes the loss of a loved one easier to take.

Welcome to Day 202 :) Hey y'all I have to apologize. We had a death in the family .. auto accident. My best friend in the world is gone.... and I just can't think straight enough to even search my archives. I don't know how much I will be around in the next few days .. I'm sorry.
Today is supposed to be about Special Events ... I have no examples...I can't even promise to take a look at yours... but I wanted to post the day regardless. Don't forget to tell those closest to you how you feel about them... before it's too late.