i am not there
Mar 27th, 2011

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
…I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft star-shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there. I did not die.

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being in charge
Feb 21st, 2011

I find this a moving anecdote from ‘Learned Helplessness’ by C. Peterson, S.F. Maier & M.E.P. :

On its two floors, the Arden House Nursing Home had about 100 patients in residence. Their average age was eighty. Two psychologists, Judy Rodin and Ellen Langer, decided to introduce some additional good things to this particular nursing home: movies and decorative plants.

At a meeting on the first floor, the director told the patients:

I was surprised to learn that many of you don’t realise the influence you have over your lives here. It’s your life and you can make of it whatever you want. You made the decisions before you came here, and you should be making them now. I want to take this opportunity to give each of you a present from Arden House. [Plants are passed around, and each patient chooses one.] The plants are yours to keep and take care of as you like. One last thing, I wanted to tell you that we’re showing a movie two nights next week, Thursday and Friday. You should decide which night you’d like to go.

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Many of the paintings used on this site are taken from the work of Mark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz in Russia in 1903 to a Lithuanian Jewish father and a Prussian Jewish mother. He worked with colour relationships to imbue his paintings with the tragedy of the human condition. He wrote, 'The most important tool the artist fashions through constant practice is faith in his ability to produce miracles when they are needed. [For the artist, the picture must be] as for anyone experiencing it later, a revelation, an unexpected and unprecedented resolution of an entirely familiar need.'