Heart Like a Wheel (The McGarrigle Sisters)

(thanks to Judi for the link to the above video...)

I didn't know many of the McGarrigle Sisters songs but, the ones I did know, I loved (such as Heart Like a Wheel, made famous by Linda Ronstadt) - so sad to hear of Kate's passing yesterday...

I share with you two special links... the first, a tribute on my friend Joshua's Cover Lay Down blog... and the second, an entire section of The Montreal Gazette, devoted to Kate (R.I.P.)...

SONG: Heart Like a Wheel by Kate and Anna McGarrigle

BOOK: Kate and Anna McGarrigle: Songs and Stories by Dane Lanken

POEM: Wise Men Keep Talking About by Hafiz

Time is the shop
Where everyone works hard

To build enough love
To break the
Shackle.

Wise men keep talking about
Wanting to meet Her.

Women sometimes pronounce the word God
A little differently:
They can use more feeling and skill
With the heart-lute.

All the world's movements,
Apparent chaos, and suffering I now know happen
In the Splendid Unison:

Our tambourines are striking
The same thigh.

Hafiz stands
At a juncture in this poem.
There are a thousand new wheels I could craft
On a wagon
And place you in -
Lead you to a glimpse of the culture
And seasons in another dimension.

Yet again God
Will have to drop you back at the shop
Where you still have work
With

Love.

QUOTE: "A loving heart is the truest wisdom." ~ Charles Dickens

The Only Way (Mark Erelli)

Because we remember... and rebuild... and continue to visualize peace:

9/11 marked with mourning and a spirit of service
By SUZANNE MA
Associated Press Writer

September 11, 2009

Cold rain mixed with tears as mourners collected under umbrellas and a dreary sky Friday to mark the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks with old rituals and a new purpose - honoring the spirit of those who rushed forward to help.

Skies were gray in New York City, at the Pentagon and at the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 in a Shanksville, Pa., field, where now-familiar ceremonies honored the nearly 3,000 people who were lost. Friday was also the first time the anniversary was observed as a national day of service, following an order signed this year by President Barack Obama.

The rest of the story can be found here...

SONG: The Only Way by Mark Erelli

BOOK: On That Day: A Book of Hope for Children by Andrea Patel

POEM: We Have Not Come to Take Prisoners by Hafiz

We have not come here to take prisoners,

But to surrender ever more deeply

To freedom and joy.

We have not come into this exquisite world

To hold ourselves hostage from love.

Run my dear,

From anything

That may not strengthen

Your precious budding wings.

Run like hell my dear,

From anyone likely

To put a sharp knife

Into the sacred, tender vision

Of your beautiful heart.

We have a duty to befriend

Those aspects of obedience

That stand outside of our house

And shout to our reason

"O please, O please,

Come out and play."

For we have not come here to take prisoners

Or to confine our wondrous spirits,

But to experience ever and ever more deeply

Our divine courage, freedom and

Light!

QUOTE: "When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it ... always." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Workin' (Nick Annis)

From yesterday's Writer's Almanac:

Today is Labor Day, first celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882. The holiday was the idea of the Central Labor Union in New York City, which organized a parade and a picnic featuring speeches by union leaders. It was intended to celebrate labor unions, call for the eight-hour workday, and to recognize the achievements of the American worker.

Many of the labor laws those early activists wanted were passed in the 1930s, including the eight-hour workday and the 40-hour workweek. Most sociologists predicted that in the coming decades Americans would work steadily fewer and fewer hours. But in fact, the opposite has happened. Today, more than 25 million Americans work more than 49 hours each week. And 11 million spend 60 hours or more at work each week. Americans also take fewer vacation days than employees in any other industrialized nation, making Americans the hardest-working (or most overworked) industrialized nation on the planet.

Most writers have worked day jobs at some point in their careers to support their writing, and many have been inspired by those day jobs. Salman Rushdie was an advertising man, and so was Allen Ginsberg. Wallace Stevens worked for an insurance company. Charles Bukowski worked, among other things, as a janitor, a truck driver, and a bouncer for a brothel. Walt Whitman worked for a while as a teacher in series of windowless, poorly heated, one-room schoolhouses for almost no money. While teaching at one school, he wrote to a friend, "How tired and sick I am of this wretched, wretched hole! — ... O, damnation, damnation! Thy other name is school-teaching."

I had the most wonderfully unproductive Monday, basically segueing from my nightgown to my bathing suit and back again - I finished the new Anne Lamott book... and a mix that has been in my head for years (believe it or not, songs showcasing the fiddle, my favorite instrument) finally made it onto a CD, which I then test-drove while I floated in the pool. The 76-minute compilation came to an end just as the dark clouds rolled in - the time was enough to add a layer of pigment to my skin and a newly-discovered calm to my demeanor. With E traveling, we're short-handed again at work this week, so my stress symptoms will soon reappear - however, tomorrow's Hump Day already!

SONG: Workin' by Nick Annis

BOOK: Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do by Studs Terkel

POEM: The Great Work by Hafiz

Love

Is the great work

Though every heart is first an

Apprentice

That slaves beneath the city of Light.

This wondrous trade,

This magnificent throne your soul

Is destined for-

You should not have to think

Much about it,

Is it not clear

An apprentice needs a teacher

Who himself

Has charmed the universe

To reveal its wonders inside his cup.

Happiness is the great work,

Though every heart must first become

A student

To one

Who really knows

About Love.

QUOTE: "Yield who will to their separation, my object in living is to unite my avocation and my vocation.... Only where love and need are one... is the deed ever really done for Heaven and the future's sakes." ~ Robert Frost