NJ balloon festival

There is no key to happiness.
The door is always open.

imagebyneil

I've updated my "Day in pictures" page

Tuesday morning, Traffic and a large red sun.
Its going to be a hazy, hot day.

The family Estate.

For more pics go to click here

the Oak Leaf Preserve is directly adjacent to Mom's land.

rain rain go away?

All summer I have heard people complain about all the rain.
This morning I took this picture that is the byproduct of all that rain.

The monotone of the rain is beautiful,

And the sudden rise and slow relapse
Of the long multitudinous rain.

The sun on the hills is beautiful,
Or a captured sunset sea-flung,
Bannered with fire and gold.

A face I know is beautiful—
With fire and gold of sky and sea,
And the peace of long warm rain.
Sandberg

Darwin, A man of God

Darwin's "Tree of Life"
Darwin's famous sketch from Transmutation Notebook B
that represents the divergence in his thinking about
extinction and adaptation over time.


Darwin had difficulty with William Paley's idea of a God who acts through Nature. Darwin couldn't believe God designed a particular animal or plant for a singular purpose. In this July 3, 1860 letter to Harvard botanist Asa Gray, Darwin explicitly points out his reasons for rejecting Paley's argument:

One word more on "designed laws" & "undesigned results." I see a bird which I want for food, take my gun & kill it, I do this designedly.—An innocent & good man stands under tree & is killed by flash of lightning. Do you believe (& I really should like to hear) that God designedly killed this man? Many or most person do believe this; I can't & don't.—If you believe so, do you believe that when a swallow snaps up a gnat that God designed that that particular swallow should snap up that particular gnat at that particular instant? I believe that the man & the gnat are in same predicament.—If the death of neither man or gnat are designed, I see no good reason to believe that their first birth or production should be necessarily designed. Yet, as I said before, I cannot persuade myself that electricity acts, that the tree grows, that man aspires to loftiest conceptions all from blind, brute force.

speaking of faith

"Everything that irritates us about others
can lead us to an understanding of ourselves."
- Carl Jung

Interesting choice of lawn ornaments.
I wonder how he got started collecting them?

Kendall park NJ

Happy day!
I can now get my gas and my coffee in one stop!
Life is good.

Prayer
by Elie Wiesel

The prayer read by Wiesel during the program (Sound and spirit) originally appeared in a diary and was included in the collection One Generation After.


I no longer ask you for either happiness or paradise; all I ask of You is to listen and let me be aware of Your listening.

I no longer ask You to resolve my questions, only to receive them and make them part of You.

I no longer ask You for either rest or wisdom, I only ask You not to close me to gratitude, be it of the most trivial kind, or to surprise and friendship. Love? Love is not Yours to give.

As for my enemies, I do not ask You to punish them or even to enlighten them; I only ask You not to lend them Your mask and Your powers. If You must relinquish one or the other, give them Your powers. But not Your countenance.

They are modest, my requests, and humble. I ask You what I might ask a stranger met by chance at twilight in a barren land.

I ask you, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to enable me to pronounce these words without betraying the child that transmitted them to me: God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, enable me to forgive You and enable the child I once was to forgive me too.

I no longer ask You for the life of that child, nor even for his faith. I only beg You to listen to him and act in such a way that You and I can listen to him together.

R.I.P. Syd Barrett

click here to see
An experimental film by Peter Whitehead with Pink Floyd's first recording session.

"It's an idea, someday

in my tears, my dreams.
Don't you want to see her proof?
Life that comes of no harm.
You and I, you and I are dominoes, the day goes by..."
- Syd Barrett, 1970

When rainbow meets lightning

The intracloud lightning, known as an anvil crawler,
is the most common form of lightning, with the electrical
charge contained within a single cumulonimbus cloud.

Lightning often occurs during heavy storms while rainbows
are generally formed after the rain has stopped, making an
appearance of both simultaneously relatively rare.
daily mail.com

Was this the original Coke recipe?

Soda museum

Moms Prefer Smell of
Their Own Baby's Poop

First, who decided that we needed to spend money on this research?
Second, What possible benifit to humanity does this knowledge bestow?
Third, Who agreed to do the experiment?

LiveScience.com

Nose Candy of a Sugary Kind

You strap it on and the sugary slime dribbles out
of the nose and you catch it on your tongue!

Cool!

see more

Can you guess what this is?

send me your guess

"Some things have to be believed to be seen."
- Ralph Hodgson

Minding the choas of the day,
through the news on tv
the Drudge report,
and the chatter of those around me,
with the pain of life
it all begins to blur
to spin away from me,
whats left in focus,
at the center of the whirling world,
a single wordless thought,
stillness,
calm,
a faith,
all is well.

Neil

There are countless attractions in the visible world,

Surely we should see their transience.
If we attach ourselves to the shade of a tree,
We will mourn its passing.
Whatever we see is fleeting,
Why then are we blindly entangled?

- Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Sukhmani Sahib.

rock stacking

Very cool little video.

Balancing point

click here to see the video

4th of July Fireworks!