What is the greatest reward a writer can have? Isn’t it that day when someone rushes up to you, his face bursting with honesty, his eyes afire with admiration and cries, ‘That new story of yours was fine, really wonderful.’ ~ Ray Bradbury
Month: January 2019
Laugh a Little Bit ~ by Edmund Vance Cooke
Here’s a motto, just your fit—
Laugh a little bit.
When you think you’re trouble hit,
Laugh a little bit.
Look misfortune in the face.
Brave the beldam’s rude grimace;
Ten to one ’twill yield its place,
If you have the wit and grit
Just to laugh a little bit.
Keep your face with sunshine lit,
Laugh a little bit.
All the shadows off will flit,
If you have the grit and wit
Just to laugh a little bit.
Cherish this as sacred writ—
Laugh a little bit.
Keep it with you, sample it,
Laugh a little bit.
Little ills will sure betide you,
Fortune may not sit beside you,
Men may mock and fame deride you,
But you’ll mind them not a whit
If you laugh a little bit.
Edmund Vance Cooke.
Today’s Reflection ~ Endurance
Fall if you will, but rise you must. ~ James JoyceJ
Nothing in Life Prepares One to Grieve
A woman who lost her husband of 49 years pulled me aside after I spoke at a meeting and said, “Ray, no one knows until they know.” I knew she was speaking about the intense suffering associated with her grief. Grieving had taken hold of her. I understood. I journaled about my grief when it first struck me in Dancing Alone: Learning to Live Again. Here is an excerpt from my journal.
“Nothing in life prepared me for this moment of loss. I witnessed others face this moment from a compassionate and safe distance, but I didn’t own the moment with them. I was there for others because it was what one does for those we care about. I was empathetic. I was being a good person. I’d send a note or flowers. I learned I knew nothing about grieving. I had no clue to the depths of the suffering in front of me.
When grief took hold of me, I quickly learned of its power. I learned of its stubborn refusal to let go. I felt it imposing its will upon me. Grief owns me and batters me relentlessly with its gale-force winds day and night with no end in sight. There is nothing I can do to hide from it, toss it aside, or stuff it in the hidden spaces of my mind. Like an unwanted relative, grief didn’t wait for me to answer the doorbell, it walked right in and announced it was moving in with no intention to leave.”
Dancing Alone: Learning to Live Again. Available in paperback and ebook formats from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and Kobo.
Excerpt From
Dancing Alone: Learning to Live Again
Raymond Calabrese
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Today’s Reflection ~ Hope
Hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every man.
Victor Hugo
Ray Bradbury’s Writing Wisdom #21
The main thing is compression. It really isn’t putting so much is there any metaphor – and this is where my knowledge of poetry has been such a help to me. …If you can find the right metaphor, the right image, and put it in the sink, it can replace four pages of dialogue.” ~ Ray Bradbury
Celtic Blessing of Light
A Celtic Blessing of Light
‘May the blessing of light be on you, light without and light within.
May the blessed sunlight shine upon you and warm your heart till it glows,
Like a great peat fire, so that the stranger may come
and warm himself at it, as well as the friend.
And may the light shine out of the eyes of you,
like a candle set in the windows of a house,
Bidding the wanderer to come in out of the storm.
And may the blessing of the rain be on you – the soft sweet rain.
May it fall upon your spirit so that all the little flowers may spring up,
And shed their sweetness on the air.
And may the blessing of the great rains be on you,
that they beat upon your spirit and wash it fair and clean,
and leave there many a shining pool, and sometimes a star.
And may the blessing of the earth be on you – the great round earth;
May you ever have a kindly greeting for people you pass
as you are going along the roads.
And now may the Lord bless you, and bless you kindly.’
Ray Bradbury’s Writing Wisdom #20
“Instead of the six lines of dialogue, can’t you find a way of saying it with two?” ~ Ray Bradbury
Forever Dance ~ Poem by Hafiz
Forever Dance
I am happy even before I have a reason.
I am full of Light even before the sky
Can greet the sun or the moon.
Dear companions,
We have been in love with God
For so very, very long.
What can Hafiz now do but Forever
Dance!
By Rumi
Today’s Reflection ~ Love
You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.
Oscar Wilde
