Category: 03 – Brilliant Posts! – May 2013 on

Glasgow – towards a Green city: Greener Together Awards 2014

In my previous post on this blog, I wrote:
“Even in the city, in the increasingly hurried pattern of 21st century life, it is possible to maintain a connection to the cycles of the seasons and the rhythms of nature. It’s increasingly recognised that regular contact of this kind is an important component in establishing and maintaining the kind of inner balance and peace that promotes happiness….”

Children's Wood Protest 1
Children’s Wood Protest 1

This has been amply demonstrated in our local community in Maryhill, Glasgow, Scotland UK in the last year or so. What a wonderful example The Children’s Wood /North Kelvin Meadow campaign has offered of what can be done to get parents and children out enjoying the Great Outdoors. They truly deserve this award.

Readers – you can do your bit, too, wherever you live across the world. Share this post on your networks, folks! Inspire a community (or several) to get outdoors !!

Brilliant Posts: when Einstein met Tagore

I have a new Twitter follower, Deirdre in Action. Greetings, Deirdre! Whilst scrolling through her very interesting-looking tweets, I came across a gem, from which this short extract is taken: 

‘….On July 14, 1930, Albert Einstein welcomed into his home on the outskirts of Berlin the Indian philosopher Rabindranath Tagore. The two proceeded to have one of the most stimulating, intellectually riveting conversations in history, exploring the age-old friction between science and religion….. The following excerpt from one of Einstein and Tagore’s conversations dances between previously examined definitions  of science, beauty, consciousness, and philosophy in a masterful meditation on the most fundamental questions of human existence….’

Read, and reflect….

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/27/when-einstein-met-tagore/

(Brain Pickings has a free weekly interestingness digest. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles.)

      

Einstein and Tagore
Einstein and Tagore
*********************

130 words copyright Anne Whitaker/ 2013

Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

Brilliant Posts: on the roots of Western democracy

This thoughtful and informative post by William Newton was deservedly featured on WordPress‘s Freshly Pressed list a few days ago. In Newton’s own words,

“Reading a 6th century text is probably not most people’s idea of a good time, but on this (11 July) Feast of St. Benedict (480-547 A.D.) I want to encourage you, even if you are not Christian, to take a look at an extremely important document to the development of Western culture, the Rule of St. Benedict….” 

He points out that the importance to Western culture of St Benedict’s Rule – though often overlooked today – lies in its having generated a number of profoundly important ideas which still shape our flawed but continuing attempts to live in a civilised manner with one another.

Do read this post, revisit these ideas, and realise how key thinkers still reach deeply into our lives, shaping them, from what we tend to regard as the distant past….

The Monastic Roots of Western Democracy

St Benedict
St Benedict 

200 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2013
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

Brilliant Posts: A new twist on the Grim Reaper

This is the third in my Brilliant Posts series. I’ve just discovered an unusual blog called The Call of the Siren, by Nick Owchar, in his own words “…. a site about books on myth, fantasy and more, which continues a regular column that I wrote for the Los Angeles Times for many years while serving as deputy editor of the newspaper’s book coverage….”

The Grim Reaper
The Grim Reaper

To quote from Nick Owchar again, “When Julian Barnes writes about losing his wife to a brain tumor, he writes instead about the adventures of 18th and 19th century balloonists. It makes for the most unusual kind of memoir — and it highlights how truly difficult it is to express what we’re feeling when one of our loved ones dies…..”

We need to be more open, more lateral, more literary, more honest, in approaching the topic of death.  It has become more and more something to avoid, as secularism bites deep into our culture.

Read this post. It holds riches….

 Books of death: new in bookstores. 

200 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2013
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

 

What happens when the Net goes down…..and other horrors!

This is the second in my new series of Brilliant Posts, when I feature, approximately weekly, a post which I find stands out from everything I’ve read recently.

The shout-out this week goes to the brilliant Pretty Feet, Pop Toe blog which I’ve been Following for some time. Check this one out  – ‘Lord of the Flies‘ is alive and well at an office near you…..be very afraid!

http://prettyfeetpoptoe.com/2013/06/12/the-office-armageddon/

Lord of the FliesLord of the Flies 

100 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2013
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page