… a rich day of Readwise highlights…

Awesomely, our nation, like no other in the world, is a culture driven by the quest to love (it’s the theme of our movies, music, literature) even as it offers so little opportunity for us to understand love’s meaning or to know how to realize love in word and deed. (bell hooks, All About Love)

… could this be an awareness of the bankruptcy of the capitalist-patriarchal system without the knowledge of how to correct it?… we pine for love without knowing how to achieve it… without realizing what the problem is…

I see everywhere the dance of masculine and feminine… not to be confused with bodily sex, but that masculine and feminine that must come together to complete the divine whole… the divine needs to be grounded in reality and reality needs the divine to aspire to… is that what the Declaration of Independence is?… the divine feminine guiding light?… and the constitution is the grounding of the divine… the practical masculine of how to… what are the boundaries and the rules?… –Me

Hipstamatic me!

Hipstamatic self portrait with thick framed glasses, flowered shirt, headband and hair down.

Harris/Whitmer… would love to see this after watching reporting suggesting Harris needed a white man on the ticket to placate the patriarchy… in your face patriarchy!…

July 22, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson

Money continues to roll in. Since Biden’s announcement, Harris and the Democrats have raised about $250 million in donations and pledges. More than 888,000 were from small-dollar donors. Volunteers are also joining the Harris campaign, which said that more than 28,000 people have signed up to work on the campaign in the day since Biden passed the torch. Today, Beyoncé gave Harris permission to use her song “Freedom” as a campaign song, and TikTok users have jumped on the Harris trend.

… loving the enthusiasm!…

The way to dissolve our resistance to life is to meet it face to face. When we feel resentment because the room is too hot, we could meet the heat and feel its fieriness and its heaviness. When we feel resentment because the room is too cold, we could meet the cold and feel its iciness and its bite. When we want to complain about the rain, we could feel its wetness instead. When we worry because the wind is shaking our windows, we could meet the wind and hear its sound. (Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart)

To maintain and satisfy greed, one must support domination. And the world of domination is always a world without love. (bell hooks, All About Love)

We are dealing with a Gestalt. That is to say the ‘betweenness’ is more important than the ‘things’ we believe we discern within it. (Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things)

LOL, I never knew my wife had these customized sneakers!

Red Converse sneakers with KH2020 on the side.

July 21, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson

With 39-year-old Ohio senator J.D. Vance now their vice presidential nominee, it will be tempting for Republicans to push Trump out of the presidential slot.

Now that would be interesting!

July 21, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson

Go Kamala!

Following Biden’s endorsement of Harris, donors contributed more than $46.7 million to Democratic races before 9:00 p.m., and major donors, who had paused donations to Biden, have said they will contribute to Harris’s campaign.

July 21, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson

Kamala Harris disrupts the Republican playbook…

The Republicans’ anger reflects that fact that if Biden is off the ticket, they are in yet another pickle. Just last week, the Republicans nominated Donald Trump, who is 78, for president. Having made age their central complaint about Biden, they are now faced with having nominated the oldest candidate in U.S. history, who repeatedly fell asleep at his own nominating convention as well as his criminal trial, who often fumbles words, and who cannot seem to keep a coherent train of thought.

Living life in touch with divine spirit lets us see the light of love in all living beings. (bell hooks, All About Love)

Knowledge can, of course, be the bigger context. … Knowledge can, in and of itself, constitute a context, and once you become a link in the chain of transmission, from one person to another, from one time to another, knowledge becomes meaningful in itself, quite apart from considerations of utility or profit. It’s at the heart of everything. When you talk about human experience, you’re not talking about individual experience, you’re talking about our communal experience, which is passed on, retold, and reexperienced. (Patrik Svensson, The Book of Eels)

Love and abuse cannot coexist. Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposites of nurturance and care. (bell hooks, All About Love)

From today’s walk…

Bus shelter with artwork. Paintings of two women, the woman on left appears to be whispering into the ear of the woman on the right. The transparent plexi roof with streetlight in the distance.

Stickers on a metal surface. The top is for “Free Zine Box.” The bottom is an oriental stylized drawing of a Koi fish.

Train tracks disappearing into weed bushes and trees.

Mannequin with wedding dress. Reflection of tree and street overlaid.

Sticker calling for the abolishment of prisons, the freeing of Palestine and stopping cop city. Decorated with red poppy like flowers.

A new addition to the everyday mandala series…

Queen Anne’s Lace bloom shot from directly above and located equidistant from left, top and right edges of the rectangular frame. Black and white image.

Three patriarchal archetypes…

Two piles of magazines on the left, leftmost pile featuring a woman headshot on the cover of People magazine and the rightmost pile featuring a Marlboro cigarette add. To the right edge of the frame is a portion of an antique wooden fireman’s hat sculpture/sign.

Make garbage beautiful again!…

Garbage can overflowing with plastic bottle, aluminum can, and branches of a bush. It almost seems designed to be attractive trash arrangement.

… ah, if only i had the womanly figure to wear this dress!… i think i would have to be a few decades younger too!…

Colorful summer dress in a shop window.

Sculpture by Lori Merhige

A silver rope sculpture running from the second story window of a building into a pile on the grass in the foreground.

A set from yesterday…

Caprisun drink package on concrete sidewalk.

Two interestingly folded napkins lying on concrete sidewalk with joint line running through the frame from right to left, passing below the bottom of the napkins.

Soiled piece of paper with interesting folds and wrinkles lying on asphalt paving.

I love finding random still lifes like this…

Honeydew melons on a metal tray on a table in restaurant window.

Love the colors in this one…

Pink house dress and uranium glass wear display in a shop window.

From last week…

Two orange cones with caution tape strung from a stick inserted in the cone on the right side.