Underlined: The Martian Chronicals by Ray Bradbury, 1950

They came because they were afraid or unafraid, because they were happy or unhappy, because they felt like Pilgrims or did not feel like Pilgrims. There was a reason for each man. They were leaving bad wives or bad jobs or bad towns; they were coming to find something or leave something or get something, to dig up something or bury something or leave something alone. They were coming with small dreams or large dreams or no dreams at all. But a government finger pointed from four-color posters in many towns: THERE'S WORK FOR YOU IN THE SKY: SEE MARS! and the men shuffled forward, only a few at first, a double-score, for most men felt great illness in them even before the rocket fired into space. And this disease was called The Loneliness, because when you saw your home town dwindle to the size of your fist, and then lemon-size and then pin-size and vanish in the fire-wake, you felt you had never been born, there was no town, you were nowhere, with space all around, nothing familiar, only other strange men.

And when the state of Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, or Montana vanished into cloud seas, and, doubly, when the United States shrank to a misted island and the entire planet Earth became a muddy baseball tossed away, then you were alone, wandering in the meadows of space, on your way to a place you couldn't imagine. ~Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

*image taken by NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, June 10, 2008, from here

Happy Arbor Day

*image by Nathan Gibbs here and here

Geode Graffiti

 I saw these graffiti geodes by A Common Name on Erin's blog this morning and my heart started a flutterin'. 

Sunday Styles

This little lady loves looking at the New York Times.

Finally

Making art with my child.  I have pretty much been waiting for this day my whole life.  Best day ever.

Polly Apfelbaum

Oh New York.  I wish you were closer. 
I'd love to see Polly Apfelbaum's show at D'Amelio.  (Hand-cut, dyed pieces of felt!)

Exploring

Wholeness

I read this over at Meg's blog and absolutely had to repost because it's so true and so important.

“I actually attack the concept of happiness. I don’t mind people being happy - but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It’s a really odd thing that we’re now seeing people saying 'write down 3 things that made you happy today before you go to sleep', and 'cheer up' and 'happiness is our birthright' and so on. We’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position - it’s rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say 'Quick! Move on! Cheer up!' I’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word 'happiness' and to replace it with the word 'wholeness'. Ask yourself 'is this contributing to my wholeness?' and if you’re having a bad day, it is.” 

Hugh Mackay, psychologist and social researcher

*image via here

Get Dosed

Come check out my spring line of jewelry at the Dose Market on Sunday, April 15th from 10 to 4pm!  I will be selling my pieces at Emerging Thoughts booth.  For more info click here.

CA

We spent part of last week in the Berkeley Hills with our incredible family.  I think I left a piece of my heart there too.  I am so happy to be a Hartney.

Happy Easter!

Stella Dress

I love this dress by Stella McCartney

Underlined: You Are Here by Thich Nhat Hanh

This line from this lovely book has been on my mind a lot lately.

Every twenty-four-hour day is a tremendous gift to us.  So we all should learn to live in a way that makes joy and happiness possible.  We can do this.   ~Thich Nhat Hanh

*image from here

I saw these relief prints of tree-trunk cross sections by Bryan Nash Gill in the NY Times Magazine yesterday and fell in love.  They were described as, "the deathmask of a plant, the sustained rigor mortis" by nature writer Verlyn Klinkenorg, who wrote the introduction to his book of prints. 


Click here for the full article, or go over to Gill's website to see some of his other work. 

Hi

This little baby girl recently started giving hugs, and it's just about the greatest feeling I have ever experienced in my life.  (She says "hiiiii" in a whisper as she's giving the hug.)  This momma gig is pretty amazing.

Underlined: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

I loved this book. There were too many good lines to choose from.  This one undid me.  It's the end of a letter from a grandmother to her grandson.  Read this book. 

When I was your age, my grandfather bought me a ruby bracelet. It was too big for me and would slide up and down my arm. It was almost a necklace. He later told me that he had asked the jeweler to make it that way. Its size was supposed to be a symbol of his love. More rubies, more love. But I could not wear it comfortably. I could not wear it at all. So here is the point of everything I have been trying to say. If I were to give a bracelet to you, now, I would measure your wrist twice.  p. 79

*image from here

NPR and Sagan

Stumbled upon this NPR episode which included an interview with Carl Sagan about his then new book Pale Blue Dot.  These words still give me the chills.

But when we took the picture, there was something about it that seemed to me so poignant, vulnerable, tiny. And if we had photographed it from a much further distance, it would have been gone, lost against the backdrop of distant stars. And to me, it - I thought there - that's us. That's our world. That's all of us - everybody you know, everybody you love, everybody you ever heard of lived out their lives there, on a mote of dust in a sunbeam.

And it spoke to me about the need for us to care for one another, and also to preserve the pale blue dot, which is the only home we've ever known. And it underscored the tinyness, the comparative insignificance of our world and ourselves.

*image from here