Collage by Lani with layers and photoshop brush from Jerry Jones, a very generous artist!!!
In “Number Our Days”, anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff decided to study the elders of her own cultural heritage, Jewish elders in a retirement community in California. She discovered that although their funds were very limited and they rarely got to see their children or grandchildren, they could create joy out of next to nothing, by creating ceremony, by paying attention, and by finding meaning and significance. The elders were in possession of a philosophers’ stone, Myerhoff felt. Through this secret of attention, they were able to turn the “base metals” of their existence into the “gold” of a life valued. One of the elders said to her, ‘“I think this attitude you are talking about, paying such attention to life, is what we mean by ‘a heart of wisdom’... In the psalm it says, ‘So teach us to number our days, that we may get us a heart of wisdom’”’(p.231).
So here's to getting a heart of wisdom and creating joy out of next to nothing... and finding ordinary magic on a morning walk with the boys.
Bruzzi posing for the camera. Layers in all the images are from Jerry Jones.
We found some magical things in the forest, a little memorial perched on a bolder.
And here's a little pagoda bird house, also in the forest.
Someone had decorated a pine tree with Christmas ornaments and they are worn and weathered now.
The boys find it enchanting too. But really it is a simple, ordinary magic; this enchantment we feel when we pay attention to the world around us!
