Empty Again in Wise Poverty - Sabbatical

 "Time, time, time, see what's become of me"
Hazy Shade of Winter - Paul Simon

 The Lucky Poor 

A beech tree in winter, white
Intricacies unconcealed
Against sky blue and billowed
Clouds, carries in his emptiness
Ripeness: sap ready to rise
On signal, buds alert to burst
To leaf. And then after a season
Of summer a lean ring to remember
The lush fulfilled promises.
Empty again in wise poverty
That let's the reaching branches stretch
A millimetre more towards heaven,
The bole expand ever so slightly
And push roots into the firm
Foundation, lucky to be leafless:
Deciduous reminder to let it go

- Eugene Peterson

It is time to do the spring cleaning in all parts of my world.  The backyard is a mess.  The dust bunnies have multiplied out of control under our bed.  The back porch needs to be painted.  My garage studio needs to come down.  My spirit needs to be purged of the cobwebs that catch useless things floating about in my existence.  It is time to reboot myself, not in a formal religious cleansing of grace, but a deep scrub of who I am and until it is raw and allowed to heal in the open air.  It is time to be Empty again in Wise Poverty.

A few posts ago I mentioned this blog needs a restart, reboot, renovation, or just a simple removal.  I am going to be on break for a bit.  It is time to revamp this old blog by painting the walls, hanging new art, and sprucing up the window treatments.  It is also time to take all the photos down as clickable links to enlarged images.  I need to protect my photos.  Thanks to Dr. L, Alex, and Stephen for that tip.

While I am away on sabbatical, check out the great blogs listed on the right side of this page.  You can also mine my old posts for a few juicy nuggets.  I may post an update or image every once in a while during the break, but I need to renovate and protect this blog and myself.

If I spent an average of thirty minutes for each of the 330 posts, then I've dedicated about 165 hours of writing and many more to getting images ready.  With all that work I put into this baby, I really need to take better care of it so that both you and I get what we need out of it.  For me, a chance to voice my thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions, experiences, and desires .  For you, hopefully you will find something interesting, humorous, arousing, inspiring, thought provoking, arousing (I really like that word), or just pretty to look at.

To all my blog readers out there, please share the title from one or some of your favorite posts from this blog via the comments section.  I will update this post with links to them.  For blog authors, please feel free to put a link to your site, blog, MM profile, or whatever you feel should be linked to via the comments section.  I will also update this post with those active links.

Greatest hits as requested by readers/bloggers
Proust Questionnaires
Rome
Men Take the Light
Galicia
Hasta luego mi amigos. 

Sing me out Simon and Garfunkel


Hazy Shade of Winter
Time, time, time, see what's become of me
While I looked around
For my possibilities
I was so hard to please
But look around, leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hear the salvation army band
Down by the riverside, it's bound to be a better ride
Than what you've got planned
Carry your cup in your hand
And look around, leaves are brown now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hang on to your hopes, my friend
That's an easy thing to say, but if your hope should pass away
It's simply pretend
That you can build them again
Look around, the grass is high
The fields are ripe, it's the springtime of my life

Ahhh, seasons change with the scenery
Weaving time in a tapestry
Won't you stop and remember me
At any convenient time
Funny how my memory slips while looking over manuscripts
Of unpublished rhyme
Drinking my vodka and lime

I look around, leaves are brown now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Look around, leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground...

Look around, leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground...

Look around, leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground... 



One more thing... I am not taking a break from reading my favorite blogs.  I need to read those now more than ever.  They help guide me in ways that are hard to describe.