April 9, 2023 a thought for today, What one knows it is useful sometimes to forget. German Proverb

A first upload for yesterday was “Easter flowers”. When I worked in the florist shop two major holidays were Easter (Easter Lilies) and Christmas (Poinsettias). I saw and/or handled thousands of each over the years. The only ones I could find for my upload for today was at the grocery store. I was also stopping by the church later where we had just received the lilies for the altar. 

Church was wonderful this morning. There were people there who haven’t been there for a long time...it was good to see them. The sermon was good and the company was beyond good. I am always happy to be around my church family. 

I left a little early so we could get to Lowell and Rebecca’s by noon. We were about ten minutes late. It was so good to be in that cozy little town again. The house was as warm and friendly as always. On top of it all I got to see my two great grandsons after their move. They are healthy and growing in nature. Love it, love it. Love it. 

My second upload for yesterday was titled “a favourite space”. I have a few spots in the house that are “favorites” and some at church. But probably the most “favorite” would be the easy chair that is my spot for the evening after dinner and clean up.  

Rebecca prepared a wonderful meal and even used my mom’s favorite china. Rebecca has taken care of it all of these years. It brought back many memories.

All I all it was an outstanding day. I wish for many more of those.

I will be a little late getting my photos uploaded today. I will do it when as soon as I can, no later that tomorrow morning. 

An upload for today is “egg”. Among my many hobbies was learning and doing, Ukranian Easter egg decorating. I used chicken eggs, duck eggs, and emu eggs. The whole experience was exciting, interesting and intricate. The history is fascinating also. Colors represent many things like faith, trust, patience and so on. It can take three hours or more to do one egg. Wax is “drawn” on, the egg is dipped in color, allowed to cool, waxed again, colored again and so on. 

The word for today is Genius.  Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last, Lucius Annaeus Seneca.  Genius is eternal patience, Michelangelo. Genius is the recovery of childhood at will, Arthur Rimbaud. Genius without Education is like Silver in the Mine, Benjamin Franklin. Every true genius is bound to be naive, J.C.F. von Schiller. Rules and models destroy genius and art. William Hazlitt. Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. To see things in the seed, that is genius. Lao Tzu. Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. Abraham Lincoln. The genius, wit, and the spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs. Francis Bacon. Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand. Henry David Thoreau.

The next upload for today is “eggs”. The “prop” for this image is our little Easter basket just for the three of us here at home, no children around any more, just those of us that are children at heart. Also our own personal touchable experience for He is risen, risen indeed. 

I found this article in the Dispatch this morning and decided it was the right season to use it. It is a story “behind THE bunny, Sacred hares, banished winter witches and pagan worship – the roots of Easter traditions are ancient”. This article relates that the “origins” of the bunny, the “mythical figure,” is a “long and interesting journey......from European prehistory to today”.The story as I see it from this beginning is of the  Easter ‘hare’ as a religious “celebration of spring and new life”. In Europe the tradition is more towards the bunny than eggs and flowers as here in the US. The article went on to say that ritual and religious roles through the years tell a story about the “hare”/bunny. Once upon a time, in the Neolithic age in Europe, rituals considered burial of hares beside humans and that hares were a representation of rebirth. A thousand years later, the Iron Age, those burials were common. I learned from the article that Julius Ceasar, circa 51 BC, mentioned that hares were not to be eaten due to religious significance. In England and Germany the hare was connected to Easter. In the 1600s the children hunted for hidden eggs as they do today in the US. By that time in England “hare pie” was eaten at Easter. The story goes on to say that in 1790 one “parson” tried to stop that custom because it had “pagan associations” of scaring away witches, believed to have taken the form of a hare, at Easter. So as the article goes on “The Easter Bunny therefore seems to recall these pre-Christian celebrations of spring”. And on a more positive note the article ends with “After a long, cold, northern winter, it seems natural enough for people to celebrate themes of resurrection and rebirth... flowers are blooming, birds are laying eggs, and baby bunnies are hopping about....a longstanding cultural symbol to remind us of the cycles and stages of our own lives.”  Just for the heck of it and in my opinion, Easter eggs don’t come from either bunnies or lambs. 

Dinner at Lowell and Rebecca’s with Kim and William and Ben.

Joy

                                         ravages of age in nature