FREEDOM TO READ

Should not be taken for granted.

this year, Freedom to Read Week runs from February 25-March 3.

Freedom to Read Week is an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"Even in Canada, a free country by world standards, books and magazines are banned at the border, books are removed from the shelves in Canadian libraries, schools and bookstores every day, and free speech on the Internet is under attack. few of these stories make headlines, but they affect the right of Canadians to decide for themselves what they choose to read."

what does this mean? how does it affect you?

Playing with Poetry

here is a great poem that addresses how to approach poetry and read a poem

Introduction to Poetry

By: Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

(from The Apple that Astonished Paris, 1996University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville, Ark.)

the will to love

it's amazing to think we're already one month into 2007.

i was making groundhogs with the kids the other day and wondering about whether or not a shadow will be seen - i am very much enjoying the snow and winter right now, with people skating on the pond across the street and cross-country skiing conditions so good i wouldn't mind if it stuck around.

anyway, i just finished reading all about love: new visions by bell hooks, and wanted to post some of what she shares with the reader. i really feel as if i have gone on a journey reading this book - a journey that has enriched my soul.

here are some selections from the book.

"it is possible to speak with our heart directly. most ancient cultures know this. we can actually converse with our heart as if it were a good friend. in modern life we have become so busy with our daily affairs and thoughts that we have lost this essential art of taking time to converse with our heart." (from Jack Kornfield's A Path with Heart)

hooks writes of moving from silence about love to voicing our love - of being ever conscious about how we share love - of being able to surrender and trust love - of working towards a commonly accepted definition of love and why this is so important...

she quotes from M. Scott Peck's book The Road Less Traveled, a definition of love as "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth...love is as love does. love is an act of will-namely, both an intention and an action. will also implies choice. we do not have to love. we chose to love."

this is simply a starting point - i am moving towards sharing this book with my loved ones and will likely have more to say - so if this awakens your curiosity in any way i highly recommend borrowing it from the library and opening to its gifts.