Robert L. Peters

9 November 2018

A cautionary tale… featuring Jack Frost.

Jack_Frost

Somewhere in wintery Russia…

Once upon a time, there was a woman who had both a daughter of her own, whom she loved, as well as a step-daughter, whom she hated. One day, the woman ordered her husband to take her stepdaughter out into the winter fields and leave her there to die, and he obeys her. Morozko (aka Jack Frost) finds her there; she is polite and kind to him, so he gives her a chest full of beautiful things and fine garments. After a while, the stepmother sends her father to bring back the girl’s body to be buried, which he also obeys. After a while, the barking family dog imparts that the girl is coming back, and that she is beautiful and happy.

When the stepmother sees what her stepdaughter has brought back, she orders her husband to take her own daughter out into the fields. Unlike before, this child is rude to Morozko, and he freezes her to death. When the husband goes out to bring her back, the family dog forewarns that the child will be buried. When the father brings back the body, the old woman weeps.

(In the Grimm version of this fairy tale, the girl is coated with gold and sliver coins while the rude child is coated with cement, mud, flour and pitch).

Illustration by Ivan Bilibin


7 November 2018

There is a crack in everything…

leonardcohen

Montreal, Canada

It’s two years ago today since poet/troubadour Leonard Cohen moved on into the next dimension. I came across this insightful tribute by Maria Popova online (with thanks to Brenda Sanderson for the link)…

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There Is a Crack in Everything, That’s How the Light Gets In: Leonard Cohen on Democracy and Its Redemptions

A generous reminder that we must aim for “a revelation in the heart rather than a confrontation or a call-to-arms or a defense.”

Trained as a poet and ordained as a Buddhist monk, Leonard Cohen (September 21, 1934–November 7, 2016) is our patron saint of sorrow and redemption. He wrote songs partway between philosophy and prayer — songs radiating the kind of prayerfulness which Simone Weil celebrated as “the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

One of his most beloved lyric lines, from the song “Anthem” — a song that took Cohen a decade to write — remains what is perhaps the most meaningful message for our troubled and troubling times: “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” It springs from a central concern of Cohen’s life and work, one which he revisited in various guises across various songs — including in “Suzanne,” where he writes “look among the garbage and the flowers / there are heroes in the seaweed,” and in the iconic “Hallelujah”: “There’s a blaze of light / In every word / It doesn’t matter which you heard / The holy or the broken Hallelujah”.

Read the whole post on Brain Pickings


18 October 2018

Rich Sparks… when the world needs a chuckle.

Sparks_engine

Sparks_octopus

Sparks_dino

Sparks_exctinction

Sparks_pike

Sparks_sofist

Sparks_juices

Sparks_unicorn

Sparks_paleoviewmaster

Sparks_climbing

Out there in cyberspace…

I have recently met an inspiring illustrator/cartoonist on Facebook (yes, it happens). I find his work to be insightful, funny, sardonic, often cheeky — quite brilliant, really — a balm for troubled times. You can see more of Mr. Sparks’ work here.


17 October 2018

As of today, cannabis is legal across Canada…

Canada_Cannabis

Coast to coast to coast...

Today, Canada became the largest country in the world and the third (following Portugal and Uruguay) with a legal national marijuana marketplace. Read more here…

My photo in September 2017, Cox Bay Beach, Tofino (British Columbia).


10 October 2018

Dear BIGOTS, Dear racists…

Dear-bigots

Dear-homophobes

One_Scotland_campaign

Well done, Scotland! Well done, Police Scotland… (more here, and a video here).


3 October 2018

A pacifist between wars is like a vegetarian between meals.

Ammon Hennacy


24 September 2018

How can you mend a broken heart?

broken_heart

Thanks to Stefan Serezliev, a professor in Sofia, Bulgaria… (who I got to know in a police station in Istanbul 14 years ago — long story). Original image source unknown.


13 September 2018

Oldest known drawing by human hands…?

oldest_drawing_01

oldest_drawing_02

Blombos Cave (near Capetown), South Africa

“Nine red lines on a stone flake found in a South African cave may be the earliest known drawing made by Homo sapiens, archaeologists reported on Wednesday. The artifact, which scientists think is about 73,000 years old, predates the oldest previously known modern human abstract drawings from Europe by about 30,000 years.”

“We knew a lot of things Homo sapiens could do, but we didn’t know they could do drawings back then,” said Christopher Henshilwood, an archaeologist from the University of Bergen in Norway and lead author of the study…

(full story here, or here)


15 August 2018

Flesh-coloured…

flesh

(original source unknown)


1 August 2018

Tolerance…

HarryPearce_Pentagram_Tolerance

Poster by Harry Pearce, Pentagram UK… more here.


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