New Worlds of Body, Mind & Spirit Since 1901
Sometimes abundance is more than your checkbook. People who seem poor often have hidden riches that are not merely financial, and people who seem fabulously wealthy are sometimes discovered to be poor at heart. Consider what Ebenezer Scrooge's night of lessons taught him. Next morning:He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew…Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise ...
In 1872, Victorian poet Christina Rossetti felt inspired to write "A Christmas Carol," a long poem that describes the world's terrible winter before the birth of Jesus. Read the first verse aloud to get the feeling:In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,In the bleak midwinter, long ago. But while our winter may be cold, it is not bleak! We know the planet is naturally spinning into its season of ...
The first book printed in English, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, appeared on this date in 1476. It was printed and sold by William Caxton, a merchant who brought the first printing press to England. Books printed on real paper seem to be disappearing today. Devices seem handier. Nevertheless, if our civilization is to survive, we need real books and libraries. Cast your circle and state your intention to protect books and libraries. Appeal to the goddesses and gods of wisdom: O Great and Wise ...
In one of the subplots of The Merchant of Venice, Jessica (Shylock's daughter) elopes with Lorenzo. It's true love. In act 5, they are sitting together and gazing up at the sky. Lorenzo's speech is one of Shakespeare's most evocative:How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!Here will we sit and let the sounds of musicCreep in our ears: soft stillness and the nightBecome the touches of sweet harmony.Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heavenIs thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: ...
