Once upon a time I was visiting my maternal grandmother. She was living in Vancouver, Washington, across the state line from Portland, Oregon. She had been born in Pennsylvania nine days after the start of the Great War of 1914-1918 and named Catherine Jane St. Bonnet (pronounced in the French way). During this visit, many questions were asked and stories told. One night while there I dreamt about floating through the solar system, looking, amazed, at celestial objects as they passed by, feeling peaceful and content. I woke up and scrawled a "key to life:"
It's not what you do / It's how you see what you do
Which was later refined to:
It's not what you do / It's how you perceive what you do
Since that visit once upon a time ago, I've come across similar thoughts -- even recently, via Florence Scovel Shinn, for instance:
"I will give you the land that thou seeth."
What you see is what you get. What you say is what you hear. What you ask is what you find.
On the one hand, we have Edgar Allen Poe's 1849 poetical statement at the end of one stanza, followed by the same idea in the form of a question at the end of the second:
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream . . .
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
On the other hand, we've got Eden Phillpotts' 1919 observation:
The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Today's Rune: Separation (Reversed). Above: Ella Fitzgerald and Her Famous Orchestra, Live at the Savoy, 1939-40, including "It Ain't What You Do (It's the Way That You Do It)."
1 comment:
Well this came at a perfect time. Thanks
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