Today is the sun's birthday and Saturnalia! Enjoy the day and Happy Holidays!
Friday, December 25, 2020
Thursday, December 24, 2020
It's Midnight At Christmas 2020
"Snowflake" by Kate Bush...
I was born in a cloud...
Now I am falling.
I want you to catch me.
Look up and you'll see me.
You know you can hear me.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
We're over a forest.
There's millions of snowflakes.
We're dancing.
The world is so loud. Keep falling and I'll find you.
I am ice and dust. I am sky.
I can see horses wading through snowdrifts.
My broken heart, my fabulous dances.
My fleeting song, fleeting.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
My broken heart, my fabulous dance.
My fleeting song, my twist and shout.
I am ice and dust and light. I am sky and here.
I can hear people.
I think you are near me now.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
We're over a forest.
It's midnight at Christmas.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
I think I can see you.
There's your long, white neck.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
Now I am falling.
Look up and you'll see me.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
In a moment or two.
I'll be with you.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
Be ready to catch me.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
Kate Bush taught me how to fly.
http://www.katebush.com/
I was born in a cloud...
Now I am falling.
I want you to catch me.
Look up and you'll see me.
You know you can hear me.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
We're over a forest.
There's millions of snowflakes.
We're dancing.
The world is so loud. Keep falling and I'll find you.
I am ice and dust. I am sky.
I can see horses wading through snowdrifts.
My broken heart, my fabulous dances.
My fleeting song, fleeting.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
My broken heart, my fabulous dance.
My fleeting song, my twist and shout.
I am ice and dust and light. I am sky and here.
I can hear people.
I think you are near me now.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
We're over a forest.
It's midnight at Christmas.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
I think I can see you.
There's your long, white neck.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
Now I am falling.
Look up and you'll see me.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
In a moment or two.
I'll be with you.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
Be ready to catch me.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.
Kate Bush taught me how to fly.
http://www.katebush.com/
'Twas The Night Before Christmas with HRH the Prince of Wales and Special Guests
The classic holiday poem "'Twas The Night Before Christmas" was recorded this season in support of the Actors’ Benevolent Fund, of which The Prince of Wales has been Patron for over 20 years taking over the role from Her Majesty The Queen in 2000. The charity fund was started in 1882 by Henry Irving, one of the foremost actors of his generation and supports actors and stage managers who are unable to work due to illness, injury, or old age and those experiencing financial hardship particularly during the Coronavirus pandemic. This year has been particularly difficult for those working in the industry and in April the charity launched an Emergency Grant Fund to support those in their profession who are experiencing financial hardship owing to the pandemic.
Led by HRH Prince Charles, this group of actors give a lovely reading this Christmas Eve. But #1 for dedication and enthusiasm geos to the enchanting Joanna Lumley, aka Patsy Stone. And surprisingly, #2 goes to HRH the Prince of Wales who was committed to the narrative as well!
Led by HRH Prince Charles, this group of actors give a lovely reading this Christmas Eve. But #1 for dedication and enthusiasm geos to the enchanting Joanna Lumley, aka Patsy Stone. And surprisingly, #2 goes to HRH the Prince of Wales who was committed to the narrative as well!
As an actor, I can attest that the industry has been flatlined. If you can, seek out a theatre near you and consider making a donation to support these hard-hit arts institutions so they are not gone from your community for good.
Lights Will Guide You Home 2020
On this Christmas Eve, may you find your way home, where ever that may be, especially if it can only be in your heart.
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Monday, December 21, 2020
Happy Winter Solstice 2020!
Today is the shortest day and the longest night of the year. Tomorrow, the sun begins its return to the northern hemisphere.
Welcome back Sol Invictus.
Welcome back Sol Invictus.
Happy Winter Solstice 2020!
This Solstice, Solace for the Darkness by Dennis Overbye
This Solstice, Solace for the Darkness
A rare conjunction of planets serves as a reminder that there is more to the universe than just ourselves.
by Dennis Overbye for The New York Times
Dec. 18, 2020
We have now arrived at the longest, darkest night of the longest, darkest year. And yet rarely have the heavens so proclaimed their glory.
In blithe disregard for the activities of the Electoral College and everything else that humans were engaged in, the sun and the moon last week lined up in a perfect cue-ball shot to produce a total solar eclipse. The moon’s shadow slid across Argentina and Chile, and the majestic but shy mandala known as the solar corona revealed itself to crowds who had braved rain and fog in anticipation of the sight.
Meanwhile, the Geminid meteor shower graced the Northern Hemisphere with celestial brush strokes of fire. And as always there is the brilliance of the winter Milky Way, starring Orion.
Now comes one of the grandest events of the sky: a planetary conjunction.
For the past year, Jupiter and Saturn have been dancing ever closer in the night sky. On the evening of Dec. 21, the very nadir of winter, they will be so close — one-tenth of one angular degree — that if your eyes are as bad as mine, they will appear as one blurry, bright planet. With a little optical aid you should be able to discern them as separate orbs, almost kissing, although Jupiter will be 450 million miles in front of the ringed Saturn.
Go out and look southwest in the hour after sunset. According to astronomers, the two planets have not appeared this close to each other in the sky since 1623 — but the sun’s glare then would have rendered them invisible. To find a conjunction that humans could see, you must skip all the way back to 1226, or ahead to March 15, 2080. You might wonder who will be around to witness that event.
Every 20 years, Jupiter and Saturn come into conjunction — appearing within a couple of degrees from each other, about the width of three full moons.
Such conjunctions of planets are fraught with psychic meaning to astrologers. And some astronomers have speculated that a conjunction involving Jupiter, Venus and the star Regulus in the years 2-3 B.C. might have inspired the stories of the star of Bethlehem
The universe is big enough that you can find almost any omen you want there. Yesterday more than 3,500 Americans died of Covid-19. As many may die today, and again tomorrow. And tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.
Two of the titles on The New York Times Book Review’s list of notable books in 2020 concerned the long-term fate of life and the cosmos: “Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe,” by Brian Greene, and “The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking),” by Katie Mack. Both paint the same basic picture, which is either dreary or inspiring, depending on your point of view and psychology.
In the grand scheme of things, the universe is young. It was born in an eruption of energy 13.8 billion years ago. Its future, as far as we know, is endless, but everything interesting that will ever happen is happening now. This is the era of light, stars and galaxies; of creatures crawling around on dust motes, constructing telescopes and other intellectual pyramids, driven at least in part by wonder at the surroundings.
But in a few billion years the sun will engulf and destroy us. If the universe doesn’t collapse in a Big Crunch and disappear, dark energy could blow what remains permanently beyond the event horizon. The universe will become too cold and dead even for thought, let alone life. None of us will be remembered.
Should we curse our fate, or be grateful we were here for the party?
Lately a barred owl has come to live in my Manhattan neighborhood. Nicknamed Barnard after the college a block away, it has become a local celebrity. I saw it most recently in an old knotted elm on the edge of Riverside Park, surrounded by admiring humans with smartphones and telephoto lenses. A flock of crows kept trying to chase it away. For me, Barnard has become an omen, a harbinger of the essential generosity of nature in the low, slanting light of winter, a reminder that there is more going on in this world than just us. Even if the crows or the worsening weather causes Barnard to depart, I will feel blessed to have seen it.
On Dec. 3 astronomers from the European Gaia spacecraft, which has been mapping and measuring more than a billion stars in the Milky Way, released a video showing the projected motions of some 40,000 stars over the next 400,000 years. They looked like bugs swimming in a petri dish, twigs circling in the eddy of a stream, dust motes in a sunbeam.
Wherever those cosmic dust motes are headed, they will go regardless of whether we are here to watch, measure, map or wonder about them. Jupiter and Saturn will continue their dance; the sun and moon will play tag with each other’s shadows.
Odds are, whoever or whatever lives out there will never know that we were here at all, nor will we know them. But we know who we are. We know that we are alive now. We know whom we loved and whom we lost. Maybe that’s enough to ask of any universe.
Link to original article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/science/christmas-star-jupiter-saturn-conjunction.html
A rare conjunction of planets serves as a reminder that there is more to the universe than just ourselves.
by Dennis Overbye for The New York Times
Dec. 18, 2020
We have now arrived at the longest, darkest night of the longest, darkest year. And yet rarely have the heavens so proclaimed their glory.
In blithe disregard for the activities of the Electoral College and everything else that humans were engaged in, the sun and the moon last week lined up in a perfect cue-ball shot to produce a total solar eclipse. The moon’s shadow slid across Argentina and Chile, and the majestic but shy mandala known as the solar corona revealed itself to crowds who had braved rain and fog in anticipation of the sight.
Meanwhile, the Geminid meteor shower graced the Northern Hemisphere with celestial brush strokes of fire. And as always there is the brilliance of the winter Milky Way, starring Orion.
Now comes one of the grandest events of the sky: a planetary conjunction.
For the past year, Jupiter and Saturn have been dancing ever closer in the night sky. On the evening of Dec. 21, the very nadir of winter, they will be so close — one-tenth of one angular degree — that if your eyes are as bad as mine, they will appear as one blurry, bright planet. With a little optical aid you should be able to discern them as separate orbs, almost kissing, although Jupiter will be 450 million miles in front of the ringed Saturn.
Go out and look southwest in the hour after sunset. According to astronomers, the two planets have not appeared this close to each other in the sky since 1623 — but the sun’s glare then would have rendered them invisible. To find a conjunction that humans could see, you must skip all the way back to 1226, or ahead to March 15, 2080. You might wonder who will be around to witness that event.
Every 20 years, Jupiter and Saturn come into conjunction — appearing within a couple of degrees from each other, about the width of three full moons.
Such conjunctions of planets are fraught with psychic meaning to astrologers. And some astronomers have speculated that a conjunction involving Jupiter, Venus and the star Regulus in the years 2-3 B.C. might have inspired the stories of the star of Bethlehem
The universe is big enough that you can find almost any omen you want there. Yesterday more than 3,500 Americans died of Covid-19. As many may die today, and again tomorrow. And tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.
Two of the titles on The New York Times Book Review’s list of notable books in 2020 concerned the long-term fate of life and the cosmos: “Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe,” by Brian Greene, and “The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking),” by Katie Mack. Both paint the same basic picture, which is either dreary or inspiring, depending on your point of view and psychology.
In the grand scheme of things, the universe is young. It was born in an eruption of energy 13.8 billion years ago. Its future, as far as we know, is endless, but everything interesting that will ever happen is happening now. This is the era of light, stars and galaxies; of creatures crawling around on dust motes, constructing telescopes and other intellectual pyramids, driven at least in part by wonder at the surroundings.
But in a few billion years the sun will engulf and destroy us. If the universe doesn’t collapse in a Big Crunch and disappear, dark energy could blow what remains permanently beyond the event horizon. The universe will become too cold and dead even for thought, let alone life. None of us will be remembered.
Should we curse our fate, or be grateful we were here for the party?
Lately a barred owl has come to live in my Manhattan neighborhood. Nicknamed Barnard after the college a block away, it has become a local celebrity. I saw it most recently in an old knotted elm on the edge of Riverside Park, surrounded by admiring humans with smartphones and telephoto lenses. A flock of crows kept trying to chase it away. For me, Barnard has become an omen, a harbinger of the essential generosity of nature in the low, slanting light of winter, a reminder that there is more going on in this world than just us. Even if the crows or the worsening weather causes Barnard to depart, I will feel blessed to have seen it.
On Dec. 3 astronomers from the European Gaia spacecraft, which has been mapping and measuring more than a billion stars in the Milky Way, released a video showing the projected motions of some 40,000 stars over the next 400,000 years. They looked like bugs swimming in a petri dish, twigs circling in the eddy of a stream, dust motes in a sunbeam.
Wherever those cosmic dust motes are headed, they will go regardless of whether we are here to watch, measure, map or wonder about them. Jupiter and Saturn will continue their dance; the sun and moon will play tag with each other’s shadows.
Odds are, whoever or whatever lives out there will never know that we were here at all, nor will we know them. But we know who we are. We know that we are alive now. We know whom we loved and whom we lost. Maybe that’s enough to ask of any universe.
 |
| Saturn and Jupiter have been inching closer to each other all year and on December 21st, 2020, will be close enough to appear as one. Photo: Ted S. Warren/Associated Press |
Link to original article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/science/christmas-star-jupiter-saturn-conjunction.html
Sunday, December 20, 2020
International Human Solidarity Day 2020
Every December 20th is International Human Solidarity Day.
Started in 2005 by the UN, today is a day to observe, remind, and support the world's population in the fundamental and universal values that should underlie relations between peoples in the twenty-first century. Of the observance, Ban Ki-Moon, eighth Secretary General of the United Nations succinctly said, "We all have a role in overcoming today’s economic, political, environmental and social challenges, and we must all share the costs and benefits of sustainable development according to needs and ability. This is the essence of justice, fairness and equity. It is the meaning of solidarity."
The U.N. has set forth a new set of Sustainable Development Goals. "The Sustainable Development Goals are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. They address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate, environmental degradation, prosperity, and peace and justice. The Goals interconnect and in order to leave no one behind, it is important that we achieve each Goal and target by 2030."
For those of us in the United States, it feels like a new day has dawned and light and reason are once again going to be guiding forces. But we as a nation, as many in other parts of the world, still struggle with pockets of hatred and divisiveness. We can be better than those leaders who wish to lead us away from humanism and core values of decency, and we can be better than the small percentage of citizens who are misguided enough to work against the interests of our species.
https://www.un.org/en/events/humansolidarityday/
Started in 2005 by the UN, today is a day to observe, remind, and support the world's population in the fundamental and universal values that should underlie relations between peoples in the twenty-first century. Of the observance, Ban Ki-Moon, eighth Secretary General of the United Nations succinctly said, "We all have a role in overcoming today’s economic, political, environmental and social challenges, and we must all share the costs and benefits of sustainable development according to needs and ability. This is the essence of justice, fairness and equity. It is the meaning of solidarity."
The U.N. has set forth a new set of Sustainable Development Goals. "The Sustainable Development Goals are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. They address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate, environmental degradation, prosperity, and peace and justice. The Goals interconnect and in order to leave no one behind, it is important that we achieve each Goal and target by 2030."
For those of us in the United States, it feels like a new day has dawned and light and reason are once again going to be guiding forces. But we as a nation, as many in other parts of the world, still struggle with pockets of hatred and divisiveness. We can be better than those leaders who wish to lead us away from humanism and core values of decency, and we can be better than the small percentage of citizens who are misguided enough to work against the interests of our species.
https://www.un.org/en/events/humansolidarityday/
The Last Day of Autumn 2020
Say goodbye to autumn. Soon, the sun begins its long struggle back to us...
Saturday, December 19, 2020
Winter World 2020
 |
| New York, New York, Dec. 16, 2020 |
 |
| Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England |
 |
| Quartier Petit Champlain, Quebec, Canada |
 |
| Paris, France |
 |
| Monument Valley, Arizona, USA |
 |
| London, England |
 |
| Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln, England |
 |
| Killingerhaus, Idstein, Germany |
 |
| Edinburgh, Scotland |
 |
| Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, Denmark |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
