Filling the air

Since 2018 the chief conductor has been Luigi Gaggero. He came to Ukraine as a performing percussionist around 2012, and was impressed by the quiet attention of the audience, listening like to a spiritual message ("geistige Botschaft").
~Wikipedia

For Music Monday, the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra with Carol of the Bells and Prayer for Ukraine:

The Conductor

With an orchestra you are building citizens, better citizens for the community.
~Gustavo Dudamel

Cellist by Róbert Berény

Happy Poetry Friday! I am "away from my desk" but I'm scheduling a poem that my daughter Ariana wrote for her future mother-in-law's retirement. As a music professor, Sara created a thriving orchestra program after having started with only five students.

The Conductor
by Ariana Yeatts-Lonske
For Sara Edgerton

Sometimes she beckons a great sea swell.

Sometimes she places a pebble on top of a wall.

Sometimes she slices through slabs of marble.

Sometimes she captains a ship through choppy waters.

Sometimes she offers a single peony.

Sometimes she flicks red drops of paint.

Sometimes she closes a chest of gold.

Sometimes she opens a door to the light.

*

33 years ago, Sara walked across a field
and found five panes of glass.

She picked one up and held it to the sun,
saw a cathedral.

Only she could see it.

Last night we stood inside it.
Who says the world has lost all its beauty?

No one who has been here.
No one who has heard this.

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Jone Rush MacCulloch has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Jone!

Swan Knight

A knight is sworn to valor...His blade defends the helpless...His wrath undoes the wicked.
– George R.R. Martin

For Art Thursday, a terracotta sculpture of a knight with a swan helmet by my daughter Elena. The "copper" on top is where the knight's beloved has rubbed it:

Sweet babies

Compassion is a piece of vocabulary that could change us if we truly let it sink into the standards to which we hold ourselves and others.
~Krista Tippett

First Steps by Jean-François Millet

For Wellness Wednesday, a minute of sweetness:



More Krista Tippett quotes:
* Kindness is an everyday byproduct of all the great virtues.
* The things that go wrong for you have a lot of potential to become part of your gift to the world.

Celebrating the aged queen

On the face of this aged queen of our cathedrals, by the side of a wrinkle, one always finds a scar.
~Victor Hugo

Notre-Dame's largest and oldest bell, cast in 1686

For Music Monday, a bit of the Notre-Dame Cathedral reopening celebration. Daniel Lozakovich sur "Aria de la 3ème Suite" de Bach and Pretty Yende with Amazing Grace (Dudamel conducting):

Say no to mask bans

Hagstone Art

Excerpts from a Substack piece by The Disabled Ginger re: "how the shooting death of Brian Thompson is being used to re-ignite interest in banning masks in New York City - a move which would be a devastating blow to the disabled community."

This idea that masks are driving criminal activity is incredibly harmful to disabled and high risk individuals who NEED to mask for their health. It promotes the spread of disease - and discourages people who are still Covid cautious from masking.

There’s also no evidence to suggest it stops crime - and studies have shown that sunglasses obscure identity more effectively, yet no one is trying to ban them...

How far we’ve fallen that people are more concerned with banning masks than guns.

Masks bans won’t stop crimes. All they will do is fuel hateful anti-mask rhetoric and make public spaces even less safe for disabled and high risk individuals...

I naively assumed that the same people who screamed about personal freedom and bodily autonomy would oppose these bans. After all - telling someone they’re not allowed to use a medical device is a clear violation of autonomy and freedom...Of course I was wrong. They celebrated these bans.

People were cheering for them and saying they can’t wait to “rip the masks off our faces”.

In June the North Carolina ban passed - albeit with a very narrow and problematic medical exemption added back in. The ‘exemption’ allows medical masks for the purpose of “avoiding spreading a communicable disease”. Whether you can mask to avoid catching a disease - or to protect yourself from pollen or wildfire smoke - remains a legal grey area.

Who makes the determination with respect to whether YOU are masking for legal reasons? The police. As you can imagine, this is incredibly scary for people - especially those who are marginalized. These bans give police an excuse to stop, search and potentially arrest someone who’s doing nothing more than trying to safeguard their health.

Soon after the North Carolina ban passed - we heard of a woman with stage four cancer who was harassed in a store because she wouldn’t remove her mask. Another patron yelled at her that she was a “liberal” and demanded she take it off. When she explained she had cancer - he coughed on her.

This is where mask bans lead.

Read the whole piece here.

Disability-related stickers:
Fight for Disability Justice
Disability Rights are Human Rights
Make the World More Accessible
Cure Ableism
Not All Disabilities Are Visible
Certified Member Invisible Illness Club
It's Not A Miracle, I'm an Ambulatory Wheelchair User!
All of Us Are Different, None of Us Are Less

A second heartbeat

Tthere is evidence that altruistic behavior can lead to evolutionary benefits, such as increased survival rates among species. Altruism can also bring about a sense of purpose and meaning in life. By helping others, people can feel a sense of satisfaction that comes from knowing they are making a difference in the world.
~Sondra Rueter

I wrote a book about the Holocaust, which certainly made me cry while I did research but also taught me a few things about altruism. Why were some people altruistic in those frightening, harrowing times? What is the connection between bravery and altruism, you wonder (because I am surely circling around to talking about bravery). I think feeling brave is more likely to make you willing to do altruistic things. Wanting to do something altruistic can galvanize courage. One can feed the other. What do you think?

I decided to kick off my Brave year by collecting people's poems with an element of bravery in them and sharing them as a pdf. One poet will receive a $50 Bookshop gift card. Are you interested? I hope so!

What are the parameters? Please write a new poem, any length, which has a kernel of bravery in it, and send it to me by January 12th. Maximum of two. I will compile them by January 20th.

Today's poem is Thanksgiving Hymn by John Paul Davis.

John Paul Davis · Thanksgiving Hymn

You'll want to read or hear the whole thing, but here's an excerpt:

I saw someone fall from a bicycle
only to be surrounded by strangers,
one checking for wounds, another offering water,
a third testing the bike itself, the rest waiting
to see if they’d be needed, if there was any
way they could help. For decades
I did not say aloud the name of the hand
of love I could sometimes feel myself bumping
against as I clumsied & improvised
my way toward today, but all along it was a second
heartbeat in me, a breath underneath my breathing...

read the rest here

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The Heroic Imagination Project ("We believe ordinary people can do extraordinary things.") has lesson plans and Heroism 101 articles, if you're interested.

A Word Edgewise has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Linda!