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Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

January 17, 2016 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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There is something special about winter.

It’s a time of dark.

A time to be indoors.

A times to cherish warmth and fire.

A time to cook feasts.

A time to be inside.

A time for trees to be bare.

A time to sometimes not travel.

For one of my meditation teachers, it’s the time to be deep in the woods of Vermont on retreat for a month.

For me, it’s a time to think and ponder.

I really missed the winter when I was in Southern California for a few years.

And we all need to learn to love what is in us.

And to just appreciate the sounds of silence.

Filed Under: acceptance, Ansonia, Spirit of Sunday, Whispering Deer Tagged With: Simon and Garfunkel, spirit of Sunday, winter

Welcome to Ansonia Public Library! (Found Poem)

March 24, 2015 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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Welcome to Ansonia Public Library!
You have the following items:

I am the dog, I am the cat
A place so foreign and eight more stories
Rapture of the Nerds
Breakfast served any time all day: essays on poetry, new and selected
The art of social media: power tips for power users
Ikiru: To live
Mozart in the jungle: sex, drugs and classical music

Nobody move
On the Road
One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest: A Novel
The King of Methelehem
Unpacking the boxes: A Memoir of Life in Poetry
The first time I got paid for it — writer’s tales from the Hollywood trenches
Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade a Curious People and Dangerous Ideas
Palm Sunday: At Autobiographical COllage
Extra Nutty! Even More Letters From a Nut

Fooling with Words: A Celebration of Poets and Their Craft
For the time being
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

Filed Under: acceptance, breathing, grieving, meditations, rhythm, seasons, sickness, silly, spirit

Stop Subsidizing the Rich

March 23, 2015 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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In 1977 and before, it used to be a summer job could pay for college.

That meant that you know that working your ass off as a dishwasher, waiter… often in the service industry was what paid for your tuition. If you put that many hours and commitment to go to school, you don’t take the costs of college lightly.

From the GI Bill after World War II through the Carter administration, most government money went to help people and unfortunately quagmires like the Vietnam War.

After the Reagan/Thatcher “Revolution”, Trickle Up Economics started in the Orwellian doublespeak of “Trickle Down Economics.” Since then more and more taxpayer money has gone to corporations. Whether it’s the farm subsidies under Richard Nixon that took incentives to end the balance of a family farm to give subsidies for monoculture like Roundup Ready Corn which isn’t delicious and hardly edible. THe amazing soils made my buffalo poop over eons washing into the great Missouri and Mississippi River Delta. Why? Because big ag wants huge feed lots for pigs and cattle where animals wallow in shit and the stink goes for miles. And basically concentration camps for chickens and eggs. Why? Big profits.

Feeding chickens and especially cows corn is insane. Chickens are designed to eat grubs and keep insect populations in balance. Cows, buffalo and other big grass eaters have stomach that can turn the light energy content of cellulose into nutrition and give the grass the poop it needs to grow again. It’s the circle of poop and it comes and goes. And it makes the soil ever richer. Making topsoil grow and things improve.

Now, we are wasting the earth just so people who are millionaires can become richer. A satisfied mind and a satisfied life is knowing that you are enough and have enough. People in Central Maine and many working place know that although the kids are idiots, the dogs and birds are annoying, the bills are piling up and the snow never starts falling that they have a house, they have a car, they are making do.

The culture of many of the very privileged that go to elite colleges often have strong connection and end up in places like Wall Street are to see who has the most toys. Having 20 Rolexes, 10 Supercars, 4 houses and, and, and just means you are buying shiny to hide misery. An absurd number of millionaire athletes are dead broke a few years after their career ends. If the type of players that go to the undefeated Kentucky Wildcats want to learn to be a pro basketball player, they should play in Europe, China or Russia and learn humility. When you are playing with 10 year veterans and you are the talented 18 year old American, guess what, you will learn humility. Humility is what lets a five star recruit like Brandon Jennings realize after a year or two in Europe that a condo near the practice facility and a Ford Edge are enough. He has learned that although talented, he has a lot to learn about being a pro.

Right now we take upper middle class and rich kids to places like Harvard, Bowdoin College, Stanford, etc. where they expect to be coddled. When I heard Bucknell had student laundry service they immediately left my college list. When Penn State admitted their students were just numbers that did too. I feel in love with the Gray Gothic of the University of Chicago and it’s rich history. But, I wasn’t ready for graduate school level rigor. I also think I was emotionally quite young. Although, I have never been a place where anyone wanted to attack a professor’s question like it was chum. Kids at Rutgers are smart too, but they are students that sit back and listen and have to be prompted for questions.

I hope we gain more sanity. I think we need to go back to the times before Reagan/Thatcher in both the UK and US. There is nothing wrong with living in council flats or section 8 housing. Not everyone is going to be rich. My mom was on food stamps when we were babies and dad was a graduate student. People involved in welfare were there to help, not constantly suspicious of fraud. Nixon made us “tough on crime and brought in farm subsidies which destroyed the family farm, which was a tough life but was balanced with the earth. Now we look at “welfare fraud” and blame the poor. Meanwhile big coal is blowing up billion year old mountains literally with dynamite for coal so that the owners can make huge profits, college campuses and Wal-Mart live their lights on all night for “security” and light pollution makes it hard to see the stars.

We need sanity. I think we need to have a flat tax, maybe a VAT and enough of a gas tax to pay the cost of infrastructure. It has not changed in a long, long time. It probably needs to be above the break even point because we are so behind. Less money in gas taxes, means worse roads, means more wear on cars and suspensions and higher auto repair bills. It’s cheaper to have good infrastructure and keep things maintained then have to fix something broken. Think of a house that is well maintained with a hoarder or any house left vacant by foreclosure.

The purpose of the federal government is not to debt collectors can make 18.5% when students get behind on student loans so colleges look fancier and get more applications. It’s time to go back to the GI Bill days for big colleges like Ohio State. They used to accept everyone, but guess what look to your left and right, on average one of you won’t make it.

And guess what, if you aren’t meant for a liberal arts degree there is a glut in the market. It’s why a BA in Sarah Lawrence can work in hotel reception, a Starbucks or a call center.

If you are someone good with your hands, plumbers, contractors with a great reputation and auto repair shop owners make more than someone with a BA in History, Philosophy and English. Only in America to bars say “if you so smart, why ain’t you rich?” Guess what, poets and philosophers have always been broke and needed benefactors. It’s still true in the arts today.

May we have a more sane world in the future where people look out for each other and get by in old mill towns with deep roots and working class values like the Ansonia which was once the capital of brass and copper in America where I live. Despite what the WTO thinks, tariffs are a good thing, it paid the cost of government for years. It wasn’t until Woodrow Wilson that we had income taxes. And higher tariffs might mean places with strong working class values and family loyalty like Westbrook, Maine (SD Warren paper), Ansonia, CT (The Ansonia Brass Company) and Waterbury, CT had people who were unionized had a good salary and deep roots in the community. The purpose of government is not to make multinationals billions in money. The purpose of a corporation is not solely for shareholder gain.

The puppet security courts do not help the 2nd Amendment. I realy wish Supreme Court Justices were subject to review by Consitutional lawyers and scholars which sadly includes Barack Obama. Everyone who voted for People’s United clearly missed the preamble of the US Constitution: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Nothing there says that the government is for profit. That means that conservative justices who are entertained by corporate interests that voted for People’s United: Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas the silent (he almost never says anything during cases) and John Roberts should be off the court. With lifetime appointment Antonin Scalia has been a justice for a very, very long time since 1986 and John Roberts who is likely to be Supreme Court Chief Justice for a long time he is only 60 years old.

Maybe we should have ten year appointment instead. The Constitution is broken at this point, the Bill of Rights demolished (1st and 4th Amendments for Security, the 4th Amendment for the War on Drugs, and no one seems to understand that a well regulated militia to me implies that their should be some restrictions on firearms and militias which are similar to State National Guards today.

I will say more but I have said my piece. I am almost at 1500 words.

Take care of yourself and each other, and remember to always work to be excellent to each other. We are all in this together.

edmund

I am a very worried man.

Blessed be as the green ones return soon, I hope we have a rebirth on sanity, we need it.

Filed Under: grieving, In Defense of Food, sickness, Thoughtful Thursday

Blog Themes Again

March 22, 2015 by rurugby Leave a Comment

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When I was blogging every day I had themes to build around so I am doing that again and writing quite a few posts in the future.

Sunday will be Spirit of Sunday like it was before.

Monday will be Music Monday, could be a song I write could be talking about music, it could be an appreciation or so many other things. Music makes the heart sing.

Tuesday is still Port Veritas poetry Tuesday. Although I plan to highlight more poets I like and why I like them preparing for my launch of the Poetry Conversation Podcast and website coming soon.

Wednesday is Wildcard Wednesday where anything goes

Thursday is Thoughtful Thursday which could mean many things. But a deeper piece of some kind.

Friday will still be Friday Reads when I talk about not just the books I am reading but other things as well. Recently that has been more pieces online. I think I will repost much of what I say on Facebook walls here as well if I think I would like to have it be more than effemeral which is what most of social media is.

Saturday will once again be the Saturday Night Review but will include more mini reviews such as the Aldi French Bread pizza that I had this afternoon, skip it and stick with the Stouffers. #skip

Or I saw Pinky and the Brain Season 1: Episodes 3 and 4 on Amazon Prime today. I forgot how brilliant the show is. It’s a complete masterpiece and to me it’s obvious which one is a genius and who is insane. ****

I look forward to blogging more again.

edmund

Here is what I posted to Facebook. I plan to archive much more of my social media posts now. There is some great stuff there.

I have decided to do weekly blog themes again and blog much, much more.
They are Spirit of Sunday about spirit in it’s many realsm
Music Monday that is about musical journeys and will include song lyrics, mainly parody songs
Port Veritas Poetry Tuesday which will talk more about poets I like and poems I like and include some poems too. I feel like I am more concentrated on music then poetry right now but their are so many great poems that deserve more eyes.\
Wildcard Wednesday which could be about anything
Thoughtful Thursday which I want to be a longer, deeper piece
Friday Reads about what I am reading which will include more internet links since I am reading more in bits and pieces right now.
And the Saturday Night Review which will include mini-reviews and some longer ones.
I want the blog to be able to archive what I do on Social Media. Facebook and Twitter aren’t designed to store information well. WordPress is.

Blessed be and believe that your words matter.

Filed Under: Blog Themes, books, Edmund Charles Davis-Quinn, Friday Reads, FridayReads, Music Monday, poetry, Port Veritas Poetry Tuesday, spirit, Spirit of Sunday, Spirit of Sunday, The Ecq Review, The Poetry Conversation, The Saturday Night Review, Thoughtful Thursday, Weekly Blog Themes, Wildcard Wednesday Tagged With: Music Monday

For We Have Been Touched by Magic

October 5, 2014 by rurugby 1 Comment

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There is a line in a chant we using at the closing circle at Rites of Spring, a pagan gathering we go to every Memorial Day weekend in the Berkshires called Rites of Spring. “For we have been touched by magic, and the magic will make us whole.”

Maine is beautiful, it’s a special place. Portland is a magical city.

But since we have moved to North State Street in Ansonia, CT the place ahs been touched by magic. When my wife saw the two benches in the gravel she immediately thought it was a Fairie garden. It seemed touched with something special.

The song of crickets at night makes my soul happy. All of the beautiful rocks. The old trees. The old houses. It’s beautiful.

The amazing view across the valley, special. Seeing insects lit up by the late evening sun looking like little fairies.

Bees loving the wildflowers, playing with the pollen and being happy.

The world would be a better place if we planted gardens over grass. Better for the local wildlife. Prettier. Food during the harvest. Canning. Old ways.

Also less gas used, less sameness, less blah.

Not sure when planned communities in beige with bizarre homeowners association rules and sameness became desirable.

Feeling touched by magic in the local forest. I am a forest person.

Going from the beautiful Ansonia Nature Center and exploring off trail into the Naugatuck State Forest. Getting lost, feeling the spirit of the trees, stumps and old rocks. Feeling the energy of the land. I am feeling deeply connected here.

Who know I may have some roots here. My ancestors in America go back a long way, a lot fo them in the 17th and 18th Century. I know I have some roots in Mexico, Maine wondering if I have roots in the valley.

This area built things. Rivers like the Naugatuck, and the Presumpcot which goes through Westbrook, Maine and was the most dammed river in the US per mile not long ago, were industrial corridors. The United States, used to build things. Ansonia was a copper center, Waterbury a center of Brass, Westbrook a paper town, tires made in the Valley working people.

Beautiful old mills, sometimes destroyed, sometimes converted to beautiful use. Like the North Dam Mill in Biddeford, ME and the Dana Warp Mill in Westbrook, Maine.

I heard a rumor while fixing my car that the huge copper mills in Ansonia are due to be torn down too. I hope they are made into a park. I would rather they were converted into something cool and beautiful. I need to ride the Metro North to Waterbury and go through them before they go.

I have heard everyone in Derby and Ansonia knows each other. I need to get into those circles and I think I will be a lot happier. It’s a matter of time.

I do like the neighborhood and it’s a special place. And touched by magic.

eddie

Filed Under: Ansonia, Blogtober, Connecticut, Derby, hiking, meditations, nature, Naugatuck, No Filter, quiet, running water, Spirit of Sunday, The Blog, Waterbury, westbrook, woods

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