3 December 2005

Abundance was never my lot;
But out of the trifle that's given,
That no curse may alight on my cot,
I'll distribute the bounty of Heaven.

The fool and the slave gather wealth:
But if I add nought to my store,
Yet while I keep conscience in health.
I've a mine that will never grow poor.

from Hospitality, by Robert Bloomfield, born this day in 1766

2 December 2005

When sorrow lays us low
for a second we are saved
by humble windfalls
of the mindfulness or memory:
the taste of a fruit, the taste of water,
that face given back to us by a dream,
the first jasmine of November,
the endless yearning of the compass,
a book we thought was lost,
the throb of a hexameter,
the slight key that opens a house to us,
the smell of a library, or of sandalwood,
the former name of a street,
the colors of a map,
an unforeseen etymology,
the smoothness of a filed fingernail,
the date we were looking for,
the twelve dark bell-strokes, tolling as we count,
a sudden physical pain.

Eight million Shinto deities
travel secretly throughout the earth.
Those modest gods touch us – 
touch us and move on.

~ Jorge Luis Borges

1 December 2005

"One waits beside the silent shore of the mind for the coming of exalted moods whose fragile bodies are as gossamer. So soft are they that if one does not cast one’s net aright, the rough cords of mortal tongue will slay the tiny wanderers with brutal touch, and so shy are they that one must sometimes wait long before the first timorous alien will venture into the net. But once a few captives have been gathered together, the reward descends rich upon one’s heart."

~Paul Brunton,  The Secret Path

30 November 2005

"Great people are those who make others feel that they, too, can become great"

~ Mark Twain, born this day in 1835

29 November 2005

Cartilage will be first. Damaged knees and worn spinal disks will be replaceable items within a few years. This is not just about greater comfort for older people, but also the ability to stay active longer, with cascading effects for other aspects of health.

'Tissue engineering’ is an application of chemistry to medicine which is rapidly advancing, and promises broadly applicable cures for common ailments of old age. Chemistry is used to create scaffold structures, on which the body is induced to regrow its own tissue, with its own cells. Replacement of skin damaged in accidents and fires is advancing, and regenerating nerve cells for Parkinson’s patients and spinal injuries is within sight.

Laboratory of Kristi Anseth
Article in today’s New York Times
from Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Audio interview

28 November 2005

"Since music is a language with some meaning (for the immense majority of mankind), since only a tiny minority of people is capable of formulating a meaning in it, and since it is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being at once intelligible and untranslatable, therefore the musical creator is a being comparable to the gods, and music itself the supreme mystery of the science of man, a mystery that all the various disciplines come up against and which holds the key to their progress."

~ Claude Levi-Strauss, 97 years old today