The Cornfield

What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star ...

                    ~Virgil (from Georgic I)

Now is the time of the harvest and on the roads many cornfields have been plowed. The cornstalks are now  brown reminders of the bright yellow corn they once covered.
The cornfields may be smiling in this picture below. Maybe they are also dancing in the wind as the breezes bend them at noon. The wind makes its own music.

Cornfields in Fairfield, Iowa

The artist John Constable painted The Cornfield (below). This is one of his most vigorous and powerful masterpieces. 

"The elm trees in the hedgerow on the left are already slightly tinged with brown, while the shorter trees across the lane have still their summer dress of green. Between them, in the middle distance, part of a cornfield is seen, sloping down to the greener water-meadows of the valley, with glimpses of the river, and a church tower among the trees. Several small figures are moving along the pathway through the corn, which glows like gold under the sun's rays."
      ~letter from John Constable

    There is a warm, gold color when corn is in full bloom. Perhaps that warmth reminds the poet Virgil of the warm glow of love that make us smile. 

Uncle Kracker "Smile"

The Lucky One

“She was struck by the simple truth that sometimes the most ordinary things could be made extraordinary, simply by doing them with the right people...” 
          ― Nicholas Sparks, The Lucky One


Most days we barely give a second thought to how lucky we are.  Some people believe they are lucky when they find a penny, spot a double rainbow, or pick a four leaf clover. Some people say ladybugs are lucky.

Many societies also link the sight of a Ladybug with future luck in love, good weather, a financial windfall, or the granting of wishes. Having a Ladybug land on you is supposed to be particularly lucky in some cultures, and some people believe that when a Ladybug lands on an object, that object will be replaced by a new and improved version.

              I believe we are lucky when we meet someone we love. Listen to the song below by Ben Folds called "The Luckiest" and dream about that extraordinary person who made you feel like the lucky one.                                     

                                         

Mark in My Heart

“When you remember me, it means you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.” 
                                                                      ― Frederick Buechner

True Love Will Never Fade -Mark Knopfler

Every great love leaves its mark. What  I mean is that love has an effect that changes someone or something.  Usually, it is an invisible mark.  And of course, it is always magical.
Do you agree with the Harry Potter quote below?

"Love leaves its mark. This is not a scar, this trail is not visible at all ... If you love so deeply, even when a person dies who loves you, you still remain under its protection"
Albus Dumbledore
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Book 1)

Photo Credit

Nothing Good Gets Away

The renowned author John Steinbeck , who wrote  The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and Of Mice and Men — received a letter from his eldest son, Thom, who was attending boarding school. In it, the teenager spoke of Susan, a young girl with whom he believed he had fallen in love.

    In his letter of reply, Steinbeck gives his advice on love. 

New York
November 10, 1958

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First—if you are in love—that’s a good thing—that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second—There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness and consideration and respect—not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.

You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply—of course it isn’t puppy love.

But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it—and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

If you love someone—there is no possible harm in saying so—only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another—but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.

We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Love,

Fa

Photo Credit

A Boat That Can Carry Two

It takes two to sail through this life. There are storms and the water is wide. Though we grow old and  love grows old, our lifeboat is love, and it is big enough to withstand whatever changes life brings.


The inherent challenges of love are made apparent in the narrator's imagery: "Love is handsome, love is kind" during the novel honeymoon phase of any relationship. However, as time progresses, "love grows old, and waxes cold". Even true love, the narrator admits, can "fade away like morning dew" [Wikipedia]

Boat Ride by Arunas Zilys

 The Water Is Wide sung by James Taylor captures this sentiment beautifully. I heard this hymn recently with different words and title called "The Gift Of Love".
    I feel his version and verse declares that love (symbolized by the boat) can carry us across all difficult times. Love is timeless and will survive.

How Do You Spell Love

 Piglet  - "How do you spell ‘love’?” 
 Pooh -  "You don’t spell it…you feel it.”  
 A.A. Milne

If you ask most people how to spell the word love, few will answer:  T-I-M-E

Those whom we love need our time.  When you give someone your time it is a great gift.

“You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.” – Kahlil Gibran

What will you do with your time?    

The Face Of Heaven

 “suspended in a sunbeam”

When Juliet thought of her lover Romeo she saw him as brighter than the sun.

Juliet

	And when he shall die Take him and cut him out in little stars,
	And he will make the face of heaven so fine
	That all the world will be in love with night
	And pay no worship to the garish sun.    From Romeo  & Juliet

In the universe, all of us are mere specks and even smaller than a star. For this reason, should we not take care of each other a little more?  Should we not try to protect this planet and each other a little more?
Drive more consciously,  love more consciously?
      The words of the astronomer Carl Sagan remind us:

“We succeeded in taking that picture from deep space, and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.”

-Carl Sagan

Watch this story of romantic love by Shakespeare.
Wild Rice's Romeo and Juliet Trailer 

The Voice of Your Eyes

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose


(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

e.e.cummings ( from somewwhere i have never travelled)

In the movie, Hannah and Her Sisters,  a man tries to tell a woman that he loves her by buying her a copy of the Complete Collection of Poems by e.e. cummings

   "Don't forget to turn to page 112! It reminded me of you," he tells her.  Watch the film clip below:

Excerpt from Hannah and Her Sisters


    The beginnings of love are never more hauntingly or more beautifully described as in this poem by Cummings.
Listen to it being read and transport your mind back to that day when you too can hear the music for the very first time.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio - Lute Player

300 Letters

 

There is only one happiness in life -- to love and be loved. 

                                                               — George Sand

The composer Franz Lizst  once loved a women so intently that he wrote her 330 love letters in the span of six weeks. The woman was a mother of three children and didn't answer one of them until his last letter.

    That last letter said he was leaving Paris and would never see her again. She wrote him back and left Paris with him.

  These delightful stories of romantic composers and their romantic music and dramas are described in this interview between Mona Golabek and Martha Stewart. The radio show that Mona hosts is called The Romantic Hours.

Photo Credit

   Mona Gobalek's mother was a piano teacher. Mona wrote a book about her mother's life called 
The Children of Willesden Lane. It is her account of her mother's story. From her mother, she heard the following words of inspiration:

    "If your heart is open when you listen to a piece of music, you're going to feel the soul behind the person that wrote that piece of music."

   These composers from the Romantic Period of music continue to speak to those of us who are willing to listen .