Happy new year.....

You do it, I do it, it seems that all of us do it and if we didn't someone would cry "Bah, Humbug" at us...

But WHY do we say "Happy new year" to each other?

Is it just a polite greeting?
Would they NOT have one if we didn't say it?

Perhaps then we MUST say it, in case lots of bad things happen to them, Heaven forbid!

But, do we really MEAN that we want our friends to have a happy year ahead? Is the "pursuit of happiness" an unalienable right, as the American Declaration of Independence would have us believe?

The expression "pursuit of happiness" was coined by Dr. Samuel Johnson in his 1759 novel "Rasselas". In the novel, Rasselas observation of other kinds of people eventually leads to the conclusion that there is no easy path to happiness.

Life is difficult. Happiness in life does not come easy. It is during the struggles of life that often we are happiest, even though we may only realise it in restrospect.

So - I do wish you all a Happy new year, one where the path is not always straight, and trouble and pain are not absent.

You may not realise how Happy it really was until this time, next year.....

More about stars....

I wrote this poem ages ago, but it was along the same train of thought as my recent post about stars... I thought I'd share it. I called it "Mighty Rock":

Mighty Rock

Tall Rock,
Mighty Rock,
You will live forever.
Fixed in place,
Never changing,
Granite god.

Dark glass,
Hidden lifetime,
Underneath the stars.
Born among the heat and torture,
Of Earth and Moon and Mars.

Tall Rock,
Mighty Rock,
In your gaze I quiver,
You will one day be dust too,
Silt within the river.

© Mark Simpson.
March 98

Blendoriffic

This site cracks me up! I stumbled upon it yesterday in a completely random series of click-throughs :

http://www.willitblend.com

The premise is : what can't you shred into tiny fragments with a blender?

..nothing it seems, as the mad guys on this site blend golf clubs, cassette tapes, matchbox toy cars and mobile phones...!

Check it out, and let me know what you think...
Squire.

Stars

Do you feel like a star? Probably not. The term conjurs up visions of Holywood, celebs, and all the glamour and glitz that comes with fame and "star-dom". You're missing something though. Perhaps its because very rarely do we "stand and stare" to realise this profound truth:

We are made from material that formed as a star cooled.

You are, I am, the earth and all that's in it.

Next time you are out and about at night time, or perhaps just as you are about to lock up for bedtime, go outside on a clear night (wrap up warm too!), and look up at the stars. Take your time. The longer you stare, the more become visible. See how vast, how many, how endless they are. They seem to be fixed in place, never changing, but they are slowly being born, shining and dying.

Everything is changing, all of the time.

As a new year begins, I am aware of how the people around me are ageing. How the young become their own people and begin to exert influence, how the very old slowly release all control they have on the world (and their waterworks!).

I find it encouraging to think that we are all part of a universal "re-cycling" process. Perhaps its just my way of justifying the increase in landfill my family and I made over the Christmas holidays this year....