Category Archives: Celebrations

Happy Birthday William Shakespeare!

Today is William Shakespeare’s birthday.  The Bard of Avon, whose words expressed the joys and tragedies of humanity, our gratitude…

Happy Birthday!

“As an unperfect actor upon the stage
Who with much fear is put besides his part
Or some fierce thing, replete with too much rage
Whose strengths abundance weakens his own heart
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love’s rite
And in mine own love’s strength seem to decay
O’ercharged with burthen of my own love’s might
o, let my books be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast
Who plead for love, and look for recompense
More than that tongue that more hath express’d.
O, learn to read what silent love hath writ
To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.”
William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

The Book of Kells by Charles Gidley

March 17, 2013 is officially St. Patrick’s Day.  OnTheRoad is celebrating this auspicious event by thumbing through Charles Gidley’s “The Book of Kells,” a remarkable resource for those, like me, who enjoying looking at pictures as they read.

The Book of Kells, often times referred to as the Book of Columba, is Ireland’s greatest national art treasure.  It is named after the Abbey of Kells in Country Meath, Ireland, where in the late eighth to early ninth centuries, monks associated with the monastic order of St. Columba created the illuminated manuscript that presents a Latin translation of the Four Gospels and their Preliminaries. The embellishments and richness of its artistry is breathtaking.

Charles Gibley gives a wonderful account of the setting, the painters, scribes and tools.  He explains the symbols, icons and themes that intertwine all through the manuscript.  The Book of Kells was a communal effort that required scribes and painters to work side by side to ensure continuity between the words and the art.

“The Book of Kells is first and foremost a work of Irish Christian devotional art that was to serve as a Holy object for public display in the church sacristy. No less than the Cross and the Altar, it was designed to inspire awe and reverence in the Kell’s congregants…As such, the Book of Kells represents an indefinable act of faith on the part of those who created it and those who worshipped before it.”

Charles Gidley, The Book of Kells

 

For more on The Book of Kells, I invite you to view Clanmother at Pinterest.

OTR Celebrates International Women’s Day

America's Women

Today is International Women’s Day.  OTR celebrates this auspicious moment with America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines by Gail Collins. This book lives up to its title with page turning narratives that commemorates the achievements of American women over four centuries.

“If women want any rights more than they’s got, why don’t they just take them, and not be talking about it.”

Sojourner Truth

Most history books, by and large, are based on a male’s perspective. Indeed, history gives us women of influence such as Cleopatra, Elizabeth I, Marie Antoinette, Queen Isabella of Spain, and Catherine the Great. There are devout women such as Teresa of Avila and St. Joan of Arc. And we had our share of women warriors like Boudicca and Zenobia.  Yet, the history of women is far richer and grander than the sum of famous personalities. It is a story of mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends who have passed on knowledge and experience from generation to generation to sustain family life.  Women were central to society and were the building blocks for communities and civilizations.

America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines weaves the story of women of many races and ethnicities, rich and poor, young and old, urban and rural, slave and slave-owner. I felt the range of emotions, from anger, to indignation, to joy and celebration.  Most of all, I felt pride for what women have accomplished, together. We stand on the shoulders of giants.

“The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

OTR Celebrates Lucille Clifton

Lucille Clifton

“You might as well answer the door, my child,
the truth is furiously knocking.”
― Lucille Clifton, Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980

As we leave February, the month that Canada celebrates Black History, I wanted to include a poem by Lucille Clifton (1936 – 2010). She focused on family life and on the African-American experience. Her belief that we gain strength and endurance through adversity can be seen in her poetry. She is known for her ability to express deep and complex concepts with only a few, well-chosen phases, without the use of any capitalized words.    The title, “won’t you celebrate with me” is a joyous narrative of survival.

 

won’t you celebrate with me

By Lucille Clifton

won’t you celebrate with me

what i have shaped into

a kind of life? i had no model.

born in babylon

both nonwhite and woman

what did i see to be except myself?

i made it up

here on this bridge between

starshine and clay,

one hand holding tight

my other hand; come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Edna St. Vincent Millay

Happy Birthday, Edna

“I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Today, in 1892, Edna St. Vincent Millay rushed into this world.  Born in Rockland, Maine, her parents were Cora Lounella, a nurse, and Henry Tollman Millay, a school teacher.  She had two sisters, Norma and Kathleen.  Her mother divorced her father in 1904 for financial irresponsibility although they had been separated for several years.  Cora and her daughters moved from town to town, living in gentile poverty.   Everywhere they went, they carried with them a trunk full of classic literature including Shakespeare and Milton.

God’s World

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!

Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!

Thy mists, that roll and rise!

Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag

And all but cry with colour!   That gaunt crag

To crush!   To lift the lean of that black bluff!

World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

****

Long have I known a glory in it all,

But never knew I this;

Here such a passion is

As stretcheth me apart,—Lord, I do fear

Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;

My soul is all but out of me,—let fall

No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.