A few little things

[jennywren]

On the twelfth day of Christmas, jennywren129 sent to me...

Twelve rainbows drumming

Eleven trees writing

Ten cats a-knitting

Nine books camping

Eight words a-reading

Seven bookstores a-spinning

Six linguistics a-painting

Five cre-e-e-eation myths

Four word games

Three flash girls

Two prairie lights

...and a religion in a fantasy.

Get your own Twelve Days:

When you are growing up, there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully—the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you. The public library is a great equalizer. Keith Richards

Despite the meek, shush-shushing stereotype, librarians are largely a freedom-upholding, risk-taking group. In the name of the First Amendment and anti-censorship, they have championed the causes of provocative writers and spoken out against banned and challenged books. Writer Linton Weeks, Washington Post

I really didn't realize the librarians were, you know, such a dangerous group. ... You think they're just sitting at the desk, all quiet and everything. They're like plotting the revolution, man. I wouldn't mess with them.- Michael Moore



Those who burn books today will burn people tomorrow. Anonymous witness, Nazi bonfire 1933

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Social Democrats, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Social Democrat. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew, Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me. Pastor Martin Neimoller

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
- John F. Kennedy

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin

We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own. Ben Sweetland

Do something for somebody every day for which you do not get paid. -Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965)

"You're right. No human being would stack books like this." from the movie Ghostbusters

Internal peace is an essential first step to achieving peace in the world. How do you cultivate it? It's very simple. In the first place by realizing clearly that all mankind is one, that human beings in every country are members of one and the same family. His Holiness the Dalai Lama

I owned the world that hour as I rode over it. free of the earth, free of the mountains, free of the clouds, but how inseparably I was bound to them. Charles Lindbergh

A painter is a man who paints what he sells; an artist, on the other hand, is a man who sells what he paints. -Pablo Picasso, artist and sculptor (1881-1973)

Do give books -- religious or otherwise -- for Christmas. They're never fattening, seldom sinful, and permanently personal. -Lenore Hershey, editor and writer (1919-1997)

This grand show is eternal.
It is always sunrise somewhere;
the dew is never all dried at once;
a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising.
Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming,
on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn,
as the round earth rolls.
- My First Summer in the Sierra, John Muir

Renunciation is not getting rid of the things of this World,
But accepting that they pass away."
-- Aitken Roshi

"Happiness cannot be pursued. You do not find happiness; happiness finds you. It is not an end in itself, but a by-product of other activities, often arriving when it is least expected." Mick Brown

"If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not a poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place." Rainer Maria Rilke

"What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do." Bob Dylan

We are not mad, we are human, we want to love, and someone must forgive us for the paths we take to love, for the paths are many and dark, and we are ardent and cruel in our journey." Leonard Cohen

"Because grandiosity is the counterpart of depression within the narcissistic disturbance, the achievement of freedom from both forms of disturbance is hardly possible without deeply felt mourning about the situation of the former child. This ability to grieve - that is, to give up the illusion of his “happy” childhood, to feel and recognize the full extent of the hurt he has endured - can restore the depressive’s vitality and creativity and free the grandiose person from the exertions of and dependence on the Sisyphean task. If a person is able, during this long process, to experience the reality that he was never loved as a child for what he was but was instead needed and exploited for his achievements, success, and good qualities - and that he sacrificied his childhood for this form of love - he will be very deeply shaken, but one day he will feel the desire to end these efforts. He will discover in himself a need to live according to his true self and no longer be forced to earn “love” that always leaves him empty-handed, since it is given to his false self - something he has begun to identify and relinquish." Alice Miller, "Drama of the Gifted Child"

"To follow the path of wisdom has never been more urgent or more difficult. Our society is dedicated almost entirely to the celebration of ego, with all its sad fantasies about success and power, and it celebrates those very forces of greed and ignorance that are destroying the planet. It has never been more difficult to hear the unflattering voice of the truth, and never more difficult, once having heard it, to follow it." Sogyal Rimpoche

"It’s hard to imagine a more purposeless activity than American-style high school in our time… high school in our times amounts to little more than day care for virtual adults in which some learning might incidentally take place, much of it of dubious value." James Howard Kunstler, “The Long Emergency”

Never be haughty to the humble; never be humble to the haughty. -Jefferson Davis, confederate president (1808-1889)

In seeking wisdom, the first step is silence, the second listening, the third remembering, the fourth practicing, the fifth -- teaching others. -Ibn Gabirol, poet and philosopher (c. 1022-1058)

"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children." Madeline L'Engle

For storytelling is always the art of repeating stories, and this art is lost when the stories are no longer retained. It is lost because there is no more weaving and spinning to go on while they are being listened to. The more self-forgetful the listener is, the more deeply is what he listens to impressed upon his memory. When the rhythm of work has seized him, he listens to the tales in such a way that the gift of retelling them comes to him all by itself. This, then, is the nature of the web in which the gift of storytelling is cradled. Walter Benjamin, "The Storyteller" 1936

"Where did Jesus say you can kill people for a purpose?" Antonio Espera, a U.S. sergeant in Iraq

"Creation is the antidote to violence. When... people find the deep voice they're naturally born with, that truth they're carrying inside, their whole life changes." Michael Meade

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. Jimi Hendrix

If one sins against the laws of proportion and gives something too big to something too small to carry it -- too big sails to too small a ship, too big meals to too small a body, too big powers to too small a soul -- the result is bound to be a complete upset. In an outburst of hubris the overfed body will rush into sickness, while the jack-in-office will rush into the unrighteousness that hubris always breeds. -Plato, philosopher (427-347 BCE)

In 2007, jennywren129 resolves to...

Buy new creation myths.
Put fifty linguistics a month into my savings account.
Connect with my inner religion.
Get back in contact with some old libraries.
Become a better gaiman.
Drink four glasses of synaesthesia every day.

Get your own New Year's Resolutions:

In 2007, theofem resolves to...

Buy new cats.
Take evening classes in religion.
Find a new computer.
Apply for a new glbt.
Connect with my inner xena.
Spend more time with my books.

Get your own New Year's Resolutions:

A politician is a man who thinks of the next election; while the statesman thinks of the next generation. -James Freeman Clarke, preacher and author (1810-1888)