Love Shack (The B-52's)

DailyOm
January 18, 2010
Choose Love
What We Are Made of

Love is often presented as the opposite of fear, but true love is not opposite anything. True love is far more powerful than any negative emotions, as it is the environment in which all things arise. Negative emotions are like sharks swimming in the ocean of love. All things beautiful and fearful, ugly and kind, powerful and small, come into existence, do their thing, and disappear within the context of this great ocean. At the same time, they are made of the very love in which they swim and can never be separated. We are made of this love and live our whole lives at one with it, whether we know it or not.

It is only the illusion that we are separate from this great love that causes us to believe that choosing anything other than love makes sense or is even possible. In the relative, dualistic world of positive and negative, darkness and light, male and female, we make choices and we learn from them. This is exactly what we are meant to be doing here on earth. Underlying these relative choices, though, is the choice to be conscious of what we are, which is love, or to be unconscious of it. When we choose to be conscious of it, we choose love. We will still exist in the relative world of opposites and choices and cause and effect, and we will need to make our way here, but doing so with an awareness that we are all made of this love will enable us to be more playful, more joyful, more loving and wise, as we make our way. Ultimately, the choices we make will shed light on the love that makes us all one, enabling those who have forgotten to return to the source.

This world makes it easy to forget this great love, which is part of why we are here. We are here to remember and, when we forget to remember again, to choose love.

I work very hard at not repeating songs (or books, poems and quotes)... but this one begged for duplication... especially since today is my sister Mari's 42nd birthday and, not only did she turn me on to The B-52's... but she is also a huge fan of Sugarland (so imagine my surprise and delight at discovering the above video!)...

Today I e-mailed, I called, I sent flowers - I am shipping a present that is currently out of stock. Mari is hosting a slumber party this weekend so I'm having something delivered then (it's a surprise!) - however, the very best present (in my mind) is that I've asked my collaborators at Star Maker Machine if we could choose songs with Mary in the title as our theme for the week of January 17-23... and they very sweetly agreed. Go here to see my kick-off post yesterday (which links to my post on this OV site about Mari almost two years ago)... and here to check in throughout the week to see what's been added - the proverbial icing is that I'll make a mix CD of all the contributed songs as an additional gift (thanks, SMMers... :-)

It's been hard, since this is Mari's first birthday since Mom passed July 19 - we miss her always... but special occasions evoke such a mix of dread and finality (it hits home that Mom won't be calling to wish us a happy one)...

SONG: Love Shack by The B-52's

BOOK: My Sister, My Self: Understanding the Sibling Relationship That Shapes Our Lives, Our Loves, and Ourselves by Vikki Stark

POEM: And the Cantilevered Inference Shall Hold the Day by Michael Blumenthal

Things are not as they seem: the innuendo of everything makes
itself felt and trembles towards meanings we never intuited
or dreamed. Take, for example, how the warbler, perched on a

mere branch, can kidnap the day from its tediums and send us
heavenwards, or how, held up by nothing we really see, our
spirits soar and then, in a mysterious series of twists and turns,

come to a safe landing in a field, encircled by greenery. Nothing
I can say to you here can possibly convince you that a man
as unreliable as I have been can smuggle in truths between tercets

and quatrains on scraps of paper, but the world as we know
is full of surprises, and the likelihood that here, in the shape
of this very bird, redemption awaits us should not be dismissed

so easily. Each year, days swivel and diminish along their inscrutable
axes, then lengthen again until we are bathed in light we were not
prepared for. Last night, lying in bed with nothing to hold onto

but myself, I gazed at the emptiness beside me and saw there, in the
shape of absence, something so sweet and deliberate I called it darling.
No one who encrusticates (I made that up!) his silliness in a bowl,

waiting for sanctity, can ever know how lovely playfulness can be,
and, that said, let me wish you a Merry One (or Chanukah if you
prefer), and may whatever holds you up stay forever beneath you,

and may the robin find many a worm, and our cruelties abate,
and may you be well and happy and full of mischief as I am,
and may all your nothings, too, hold something up and sing.

QUOTE: "Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile." ~ Franklin P. Jones

Walking with Roget (Lou and Peter Berryman)

DICTIONARY FRESHENS UP LEXICON
New word menu adds dash of mondegreen
—Associated Press
July 6, 2008

Is it acceptable to serve edamame to a dinner guest who's a pescatarian? And do you wash it down with prosecco or soju? Before your next party, go ahead and consult the latest edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, which now includes edamame (immature green soybeans), pescatarian (a vegetarian who eats fish) and about 100 other newly added words that have taken root in the American lexicon.

Quite a mouthful

Many of the new entries reflect the nation's growing interest in the culinary arts, including prosecco (a sparkling Italian wine) and soju (a Korean vodka distilled from rice). Others define new technology or products, such as infinity pool—an outdoor pool with an edge designed to make water appear to flow into the horizon.

Name your fears

Others reflect current events and much-discussed news topics, including dirty bomb (a conventional bomb that releases radioactive material) and norovirus (small, round single-stranded RNA viruses, such as the Norwalk Virus).

Mistaken identity

And then there's mondegreen. In a category of its own, it describes words mistaken for other words. A mondegreen most often comes from misunderstood phrases or lyrics.

It comes from an old Scottish ballad in which the lyric "laid him on the green" has been confused over time with "Lady Mondegreen."Among the best-known modern examples: "There's a bathroom on the right" in place of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "There's a bad moon on the rise" and " 'Scuse me, while I kiss this guy" in place of "kiss the sky" in the 1967 Jimi Hendrix classic "Purple Haze."Merriam-Webster's editors were so amused by the mondegreen concept that they plan to ask people to submit their favorites on the publishing company's Web site.

New to who?

Mondegreen, first spotted in print in 1954, was among tens of thousands of words the wordsmiths watched for decades. That and others make the cut for the dictionary based on how widely they are used in publications ranging from newspapers to technical manuals."They can float for decades. What that means for the most part is that they've been used in more spoken forms than they were found written until recently," said Peter Sokolowski, an editor-at-large for Merriam-Webster.

Et tu, professor?

Allan Metcalf, executive secretary of the American Dialect Society and an English professor at MacMurray College in Illinois, said he thinks the entries that grew from the popularity of cooking shows and international cuisine will be the among most lasting and useful of the newcomers."I'm kind of used to laughing at the choices these editors publicize, but this time I'm impressed," he said.

[ Added 7/12/08: this YouTube video was posted to the Joni-list - hysterical! ]

SONG: Walking with Roget by Lou and Peter Berryman

BOOK: 'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy: And Other Misheard Lyrics by Gavin Edwards (author), Chris Kalb (illustrator)

POEM: Eye Halve a Spelling Chequer by Sauce Unknown

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rarely ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect in it's weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

QUOTE: "It's a strange world of language in which skating on thin ice can get you into hot water." ~ Franklin P. Jones