"Everything All at Once" by Oliver Baez Bendorf

For National Poetry Month, I want to share with you a poem that depicts the way I often view the world...an avalanche of humanity, a cascade of high to low and all in between...it can be overwhelming. It is depicted beautifully in the film "Wings of Desire" (seen here) and in this pure, lovely poem by Oliver Baez Bendorf...

Everything All at Once
By Oliver Baez Bendorf

                                           right now,
someone is having sex and someone
is dying and someone is trying to find
a lid so they can, before bed, put away
the soup and someone is dreaming
of that made meadow and someone
is gazing through a hospital window
to a faraway peak
and someone can’t decide what
to watch so they remain

on the menu screen for company
and someone wants to call but
can’t and someone wants to answer
but won’t and someone is studying
to become a moth scientist and someone
is dizzy and doesn’t know why
and someone is, after work, practicing
the vocal techniques of opera
and someone receives
a phone call saying listen it’s my

neighbor I told you about the singing one can you
hear it and someone
is clutching the heavy still warm hand
of a lover and someone is digging
a hole and someone is waxing
their back and someone
is remembering a poem permitting
bits and pieces to return
and someone
would do almost anything to forget

Oliver Baez Bendorf
Photo: Jennifer Koskinen

https://www.oliverbaezbendorf.com/

"EVERY TIME I EVER SAID I WANTED TO DIE" by Andrea Gibson

In honor of National Poetry Month, I am sharing exquisite poems by talented poets each Wednesday. The late poet Andrea Gibson's vital, existential poetry was influenced by her journey through cancer. She died last July and left a catalog of devastatingly beautiful poems. Here is "EVERY TIME I EVER SAID I WANTED TO DIE."

EVERY TIME I EVER SAID I WANTED TO DIE
by Andrea Gibson

--I meant I am willing to do anything to live.
Even leave this world forever.

Even build a new home atop a nebula, stick a straw
into a buried lake on Mars, get tipsy on anti-gravity
and invent new constellations walking the lines

between undiscovered stars.

When god pulls me over and asks,
Can you touch your nose? I could say,

What nose?

I'd be bodiless, a shadow in reverse,
a patch of light made by the darkness

I escaped.

The psychology manuals say no one really wants
to die. They want relief. They believe they will never
find it in this world. That belief could be right.
Or wrong.

One would have to stay to find out.
Friend, if you stay, at least we will be
together, and I have an extra straw.

I could show you where the lakes on this planet
are buried. How do you not need light-years
to reach them. The dark years work too.
Sometimes better. Sometimes grief

is the fastest route to truth.

In addition to the straw,
I also have a slingshot that fires rock
bottoms directly at the sun until change

spills from its golden pockets--

that's how I got my hands on this
summer afternoon. We can do anything
with it. Sunbathe or scream or forgive ourselves
everything, most especially the thread we could not

convince to close our wounds.

If your wounds are still open, trust
they are doors to an answer,
and walk through.

What if we don't have to be healed
to be whole? There are holes in every inch
of the fabric that makes me who I am,

but pull the string on my back
and I'll say I LOVE YOU and mean it
whenever you want.

Come flood my home
with your eyes. I read that people scream
when they are in pain because screaming

actually lessens the pain--
anyone who asks you to hold your tongue
is asking you to hold the heaviest thing

in the galaxy. Forget them and remember you
can tell me anything about how hard it is
to stop flirting with your expiration date.

I understand being wooed by the finish line
of sadness. Infinity still sends me nudes
every day. I won't deny she looks amazing,

but I'm taken. My hand now promised
to writing every page of my story
except its ends. Friend, you are

who taught me that a difficult life is not less
worth living than a gentle one. Joy is just easier
to carry than sorrow, and you could lift a city

from how long you've spent holding
what's been nearly impossible to hold.
This world needs those who know

how to do that. Those who can find
a tunnel with no light at the end
of it and hold it up like a telescope

to show that the darkness contains
many truths that can bring light
to its knees. Grief astronomer,

adjust the lens, look close. Tell us
what you see.

https://andreagibson.org/

Ice Hotel 2025-2026

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The annual Ice Hotel built from actual snow and ice every year in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden has been open for a few weeks now. And every year, the design for the hotel as well as each of the rooms is different! Participating artists and designers come to sculpt and craft the suites into works of art that one can sleep in. This year's line up is playful (a beaver wearing a ball mask!), thoughtful (a library of ice books), cosmic (entering a black hole), and, um...unsettling (a room of giant tardigrades!)...

Main Hall Cathedral Grove
Design by Dawn Detarando & Brian McArthur

At the Cathedral Grove, the icy entrance beckons you into a stand of majestic trees. Enveloped by a breath-taking clearing, take an enchanting pause in the forest where time feels suspended.

Towering rows of trunks rise like ancient columns in this woodland haven, while an illuminated sky pokes through the vaulted canopy, creating a maze of dappled light on the forest floor. Between the pristine rows, the forest unfurls, revealing the layered landscapes and inviting you to explore, wander and weave your own story into the forest's quiet narrative.

In this sacred grove, every breath becomes meditation, and every moment a chance to be both lost and found in the stillness of this sanctuary.

An Otter’s Midwinters Night’s Dream
Design by Sandra St-Laurent & Mylène Leboeuf-Gagné

As it gently drifted along the river, the otter dozed off...

in its dream, the river became a stage of a winter carnival, where creatures of the current - a playful beaver, a dancing heron and majestic salmon - gather in celebration.

The title playfully echoes A Midsummer Night's Dream, though our characters and setting tell a different story. Here, nature takes center stage in a whimsical and poetic world. Far from worry, the animals reclaim their environment in joy. We also pay tribute to the wild salmon, a strong yet vulnerable species, protected and revered for its rarity.

Arctic Archive
Design by Kristina Möckel & Sebastian

Ice is a natural time capsule. Scientist gain insight into climate history from ice cores that are a thousands of years old. The ICEHOTEL in Jukkasjärvi adds another poetic dimension. The water of the Torne River, from whose ice the hotel is built each winter, contains its stories. Stories of visionary entrepreneurs, adventurous guests, ice artists from all over the world, and how they have made the ICEHOTEL an icon for the last 36 years.

We have frozen some of these stories as books in the Arctic Archive. Visitors are invited to use the archive and be inspired. And in the process, almost imperceptibly, they themselves become part of the greatest story of the creation and disappearance of ice...

Dragon of ICEHOTEL
Design by Gao Hongyu & Guo Baiwei

The dragon is one of China's mythical creatures and represents power and prosperity. It is a supernatural being with squamae and horns around the body and according to Chinese legend it has the power to walk, fly and swim.

In ancient times we had a lot of natural calamities, like floods and drought. The dragon had the power to spray the fire and water. According to the legend, the dragon lived on the bottom of the ocean, so every time there was trouble with the climate we prayed for help, and the dragon jumped out of the ocean and flew into the sky to spray fire or water.

We hope this theme can bring peace and prosperity to the world.

ICE AS MIRROR
Design by Pieke Bergmans & Peer de Wit

A space of reverence.

Where quiet, respectful attention is given to river ice:
cut from the flow, carried here, out of context, exposed.
Not as objects, but as something alive:
holding memory, presence, transformation.

It's about slowing down, noticing, honouring what's often overlooked.
The ice reveals cracks, bubbles - its silent existence.

Visitors pass.
They stand among the ice, behind it, beside it.
Reflections flicker. Bodies merge with matter.
A moment where the boundary between them blurs.

Then the ice softens, dissolves,
and flows back to the living river it came from,
rejoining the movement, it briefly stepped out of.

Linking the beads
Design by Yasuaki Onishi & Minako Yoshida

A "juzu" is a small, perforated bead with a thread threaded through it to form a loop, and is worn over the hands when worshipping the Buddha. Originally, it was used as a tool to count the number of times a sutra was recited.

The word "juza-tsunagi" is associated with these beads. It is a word that describes how something is connected, just like the beads. It also means not only a connection between people, but something shared, like a connection of the heart.

The dreams and imaginations of the people who stay in this room grow and fill the space with a series of "juzu". We hope that this room will be a place that will embrace them, and connect them with other people.

Parliament of Owls
Design by David Rothstein, Carlos Miguel Ramirez Pereyra & Israel Magaña Rodriguez

In the deep of the night, on silent wings, the owls arrive one by one. From all reaches of the forests, they gather - big, tall, stout, wise, curious, calm, and eager for conversation. Among the treetops, they sit in stillness. The parliament of owls has assembled, waiting for the first to speak.

The suite is intended to soothe and inspire. The rising moon and the forest's depth evoke a sense of sanctuary. The Parliament's muted chatter is otherworldly - a lullaby that is mysterious, yet serene. Sleep well under the watchful eye.

River Bed
Design by Clément Daquin & Raphaël Jeanne

Sleep beneath the ice, dive into the Torne River.

Treat yourself to a night beyond time, immersed in the frozen depths of Torne River.

Inspired by the Scandinavian tradition of ice bathing, this room transports you into a unique sensory journey, where sounds and light recreate the mesmerizing atmosphere of an underwater world, beneath the ice.

A night in this room is more than just sleep: It's an experience. An inner journey. A waking dream beneath the ice.

Soap Bubbles
Design by Coralie Quincey & Peter Hobbs

The project immerses us in the world of children's games - an imaginary and oversized world. It addresses the theme of carelessness and the ephemeral.

On one wall, a child's face emerges and blows bubbles. At the head of the bed, his band holds a bubble stick.

Some soap bubbles settle down on the bed. On the opposite wall, a bubble projected by the breath is bursting and splashing.

The composition concentrates on the essential details and use the space to describe a dynamic gesture. It invites us to appreciate beauty and fragility of life through the purity of a child's action.

Spaghettification
Design by Thomasz Czajkowski & Milosz Matelski

This room is a moment of reflection on the unavoidable forces in the universe. Forces that we know exist, but do not yet understand. In astrophysics, spaghettification is defined as the vertical stretching and horizontal compression of objects into long, thin shapes. As an object falls toward a black hole, it will be stretched like strands of spagetti. In this room concept, the room is already beyond the event horizon of the black hole - that is, beyond the point from which the gravity can no longer escape. Everything we see in the room, including the bed begins to extend like strands of pasta.

Survival of the fittest
Design by Carl Wellander & Malena Wellander

Step into the world of the small and tough. Once inside the room you'll be scaled to 1/10 of a millimeter and experience the world from a different perspective. You are now in the company of some of the toughest creatures on the planet. Tardigrades can survive any habitat on Earth, and the vacuum of space. No matter what, these moss piglets will guard you and keep you safe while you sleep.

Sweep Me Off My Feet
Design by Elin Julin & Ida Mangsbo

Welcome to a room that sweeps you away through time and space. When everything spins too fast around you, it can suddenly feel as if everything slows down and freezes in a moment.

In the storm, the strong swirling winds meet the calm stillness at the tornado's center. Here, at the eye of the storm, you can either let yourself be drawn towards its midpoint or hold on tight and try to get out.

After the storm comes the calm, and nothing remains the same. But right now, the calm is just an illusion at the tornado's midpoint.

Let go
Surrender
Let nature's forces take control

There Is No One Here
Design by Ayla Turan & Kemal Tufan

The room's design brings the joyful memories and playful spirits of childhood to life in a snowy white settings. Five sculptures playing hide and seek add both fun and humour to the space. Each one is hidden in its own unique spot, creating movement and a story within the room.

While the room cheekily claims that "there is no one here", the sculptures reveal the truth, filling the space with life and humour. This concept invites the guests to relive the innocence of childhood, while playfully exploring the fine line between the presence of absence.

https://www.icehotel.com/

Happy New Year's Eve 2025!

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve? 2025!

The sublime songbird Ella sings the ultimate version of this lovely, classic song..."What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?"

I hope whatever you do, you have fun. And stay safe.

Happy Hogmanay 2025 - 2026!

Hogmanay is the Scottish New Year's celebration that takes place over the course of several days. While the festival and its customs date back to pagan celebrations of winter solstice, the word Hogmanay itself is harder to trace. Scholars have guessed that the word possibly comes from the French, Norse, or Goidelic languages.

The largest Hogmanay event, held in Edinburgh, kicks off with a torchlight procession tonight, December 29th, 2024. An enormous crowd of celebrants can enjoy a carnival atmosphere overflowing with Street Theatre, Fire Performers and Drummers, before the Massed Pipes & Drums and Vikings from Shetland’s South Mainland Up Helly Aa’ Jarl Squad (SMUHA) lead the procession in a river of light through the capital’s historic Old Town.

Events continue through the 30th. This year, the Night Afore Concert at Ross Band Stand, Princes Street Gardens features Stornoway's folk-rock stars Peat & Diesel. And on the 31st, you can attend the Silent Adventures Mega Silent Disco, or enjoy Edinburgh's Street Party featuring live music, DJ’s, giant screens, International Street Theatre, Pipers, drummers, funfair attractions, and delicious street food & drink. Then Wet Leg are set to headline Concert in the Gardens this Hogmanay, ringing in the New Year beneath the spectacular backdrop of Edinburgh Castle. Joining them are Scottish favourites Hamish Hawk and Lucia & The Best Boys for a night of anthems, energy and of course an overwhelming firework display at the stroke of midnight created by pyrotechnic wizards Titanium

Photo: Keith Valentine

There are many charming New Year's customs in Scotland. "First footing" is the idea that the first person to cross the threshold of your home is a harbinger of good luck. Starting immediately after midnight, people call on friends, going from house to house for much of the night and even into the morning and next day, with over half the population of Scotland observing the practice of "first-footing." It is good luck for the "first-footer" to be a tall, dark male. Traditionally, this male would bring gifts of a coin (symbolizing prosperity), bread/ black bun fruitcake (symbolizing food), salt (flavor), coal (warmth), or a drink (good cheer). These days, a "first-footer" usually just brings the whiskey!

January 1st is Ne'erday, a contraction of New Year's Day. The celebrating and "first-footing" continue, and many Scots still observe the day with a special dinner of steak pie. And for a real pick-me-up hangover cure, you can try the annual Loony Dook costumed cold plunge which takes place in the Firth of Forth at South Queensferry. Show up in costume--over your wet suit of course, it's freezing! 

Haud Hogmanay, everyone!

https://edwinterfest.com/hogmanay