Winter Is Here!

Dear Family, Friends, & Colleagues:

Winter has finally arrived in Central Illinois this week, with a nice fresh blanket of snow and single-digit temperatures to kick off the “spring” semester at the University of Illinois! :) Here are three poems about the wintertime for you to enjoy as you sit by the fire with a warm cup of tea or cocoa…

“Winter”

By Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)

Clouded with snow

The cold winds blow,

And shrill on leafless bough

The robin with its burning breast

Alone sings now.

The rayless sun,

Day's journey done,

Sheds its last ebbing light

On fields in leagues of beauty spread

Unearthly white.

Thick draws the dark,

And spark by spark,

The frost-fires kindle, and soon

Over that sea of frozen foam

Floats the white moon.

“A Calendar of Sonnets: January”

By Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

O Winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire,

What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn

Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn

Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire

The streams than under ice. June could not hire

Her roses to forego the strength they learn

In sleeping on thy breast. No fires can burn

The bridges thou dost lay where men desire

In vain to build. O Heart, when Love's sun goes

To northward, and the sounds of singing cease,

Keep warm by inner fires, and rest in peace.

Sleep on content, as sleeps the patient rose.

Walk boldly on the white untrodden snows,

The winter is the winter's own release.

“Winter-Time”

From A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885)

By Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,

A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;

Blinks but an hour or two; and then,

A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,

At morning in the dark I rise;

And shivering in my nakedness,

By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit

To warm my frozen bones a bit;

Or with a reindeer-sled, explore

The colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap

Me in my comforter and cap;

The cold wind burns my face, and blows

Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;

Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;

And tree and house, and hill and lake,

Are frosted like a wedding cake.

Next time: poems to celebrate the Chinese (Lunar) New Year and the 10^th anniversary of the James Scholar Advisory & Leadership Team!

Happy weekend –

Rob :)

Celebrating the Winter Sky

Dear Family, Friends, & Colleagues –

Happy New Year 2016! I was able to view the winter stars, some planets, and the Moon over the Yuletide holiday break, and I’d like to share some of that stelliferous magic with you through this edition of Quotemail. So here are some poems about the North Wind and the stars (from the archaic Greek Orphic Hymns), along with a poem about the North Star (Polaris) by H. P. Lovecraft, and a poem by Sara Teasdale about the winter stars.

FROM THE ORPHIC HYMNS

Editor’s Note: The annual cycle of the seasons and its effects on our natural surroundings are recurring themes throughout world literature. The Orphic poets – a guild of ancient Greek philosopher-bards named after their legendary founder, Orpheus – celebrated the changing of the seasons, the wonders of the natural world, and their lofty ideals in poetic chants, several dozen of which were preserved in written form after centuries of oral transmission. In the poetic forms of their prescientific age (ca. 1000-500 BCE), the Orphic poets chose to personify the forces of nature, the celestial orbs, and abstract ideals in order to explain how and why the natural world and the human social order function in the ways that they do.

Orphic Hymn #6: To the Stars

With holy voice I call the stars on high,

Pure sacred lights and genii of the sky.

Celestial stars, the progeny of Night,

In whirling circles beaming far your light,

Refulgent rays around the heavens ye throw,

Eternal fires, the source of all below.

With flames significant of Fate ye shine,

And aptly rule for men a path divine.

In seven bright zones ye run with wandering flames,

And heaven and earth compose your lucid frames:

With course unwearied, pure and fiery bright

Forever shining through the veil of Night.

Hail twinkling, joyful, ever wakeful fires!

Propitious shine on all my just desires;

These sacred rites regard with conscious rays,

And end our works devoted to your praise.

Orphic Hymn #79: To the North Wind

Boreas, whose wintry blasts, terrific, tear

The bosom of the deep surrounding air;

Cold icy power, approach, and favoring blow,

And Thrace a while desert exposed to snow:

The misty station of the air dissolve,

With pregnant clouds, whose frames in showers resolve:

Serenely temper all within the sky,

And wipe from moisture, Aether's beauteous eye.

FROM THE POEMS OF H. P. LOVECRAFT (1890-1937)

Editor’s Note: H. P. Lovecraft is regarded by literary scholars as the “Edgar Allan Poe” of the 20^th century. He was an imaginative author of “weird fiction” – a genre that combines science fiction, fantasy, and horror – and also an accomplished poet. His work has inspired, among others, the creators/writers of Babylon 5 and Doctor Who.

“Polaris” (1920)

Slumber, watcher, till the spheres,

Six and twenty thousand years

Have revolved, and I return

To the spot where now I burn.

Other stars anon shall rise

To the axis of the skies;

Stars that soothe and stars that bless

With a sweet forgetfulness:

Only when my round is o’er

Shall the past disturb thy door.

“Winter Stars” (1920)

By Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

I went out at night alone;

The young blood flowing beyond the sea

Seemed to have drenched my spirit’s wings —

I bore my sorrow heavily.

But when I lifted up my head

From shadows shaken on the snow,

I saw Orion in the east

Burn steadily as long ago.

From windows in my father’s house,

Dreaming my dreams on winter nights,

I watched Orion as a girl

Above another city’s lights.

Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too,

The world’s heart breaks beneath its wars,

All things are changed, save in the east

The faithful beauty of the stars.

Until next time – be sure to go outside or look out your favorite window on a winter evening, and enjoy the view!

Rob

“Humankind will pursue the inmost secrets of Nature even into the heights and will study the motions of the sky. Nor is this enough; when nothing yet remains to be known than the farthest boundary of the Earth, they will seek even there the last extremities of Night.”

– Heart of the Cosmos (Hermetic Tractate, Early 1st Millennium CE)

January 2016 Leadership Reflection

January 2016 Leadership Reflection:

The Phoenix Bird: Victory over Adversity

This is an illustration of the legendary phoenix bird from the 12th-century Aberdeen Bestiary. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

          Perhaps no other bird is as celebrated in world mythology as the phoenix. From Japan and China to Egypt and Greece, tales of this fabulous creature have been spun for thousands of years. According to the most widespread tradition, there was only one phoenix alive in the world at any given time. This legendary bird was adorned with beautiful crimson, golden, and violet plumage, and it built its nest of spices in a remote corner of East Asia. It was also said that the phoenix had the most wonderful song of all birds and that its tears could heal even mortal wounds. Since the phoenix bird had originated on the Sun (where myriads of phoenixes were supposed to dwell), it needed no earthly food; instead, it was nourished by solar energy exclusively (which might lead us to wonder: Why wasn’t the phoenix green, since it was photosynthetic?). J

          Every 500 years, the elderly phoenix would burst into flames and die in its nest of rare spices – but from its ashes would hatch a rejuvenated young phoenix to live for another five centuries. The newborn phoenix, as soon as it could fly, would carry the bones and ashes of its former self to the Temple of the Sun in Heliopolis, Egypt, where the priests would note in their chronicles that a new “phoenix cycle” of 500 years had begun. Drawing on such legendary accounts of the phoenix bird, European Renaissance astronomers introduced a phoenix into the sky as a constellation. The celestial phoenix can be seen just above the southern horizon on early winter evenings – a starry witness to the changing seasons on the revolving wheel of the year.

This illustration of the constellation Phoenix appeared in Johann Doppelmayr’s Atlas Coelestis (plate 19), which was published at Nuremberg, Germany in 1742. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

          Peoples of the ancient world were quick to ascribe various meanings to the myth of the phoenix. From an astronomical perspective, the death, immolation, and rebirth of the phoenix could have symbolized the annual cycle of the seasons, in which the Sun “dies” of old age at the Winter Solstice, only to be “reborn” and ascend into the heavens once again with the approach of springtime. The phoenix can still hold many meanings for us today. For example, the phoenix might represent the power that we have to begin again after a personal tragedy or some other great loss. It may also remind us of Nature’s ability to recover and renew herself after disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes.

          The phoenix can also represent humankind’s journey through history. The Phoenix Cycle is a historical era that lasts for 500 years; it derives its name from the 500-year lifespan of the mythical firebird. Every 500 years, human civilization has to reinvent itself. Old ways die, and new ways are born. The early 21st century of the Common Era marks the start of another Phoenix Cycle. The last Phoenix Cycle began in the early 16th century, with the Renaissance, Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and the Age of Discovery. Before that, Phoenix Cycles began in the 11^th, 6^th, and 1^st centuries CE, etc. The advent of a new Phoenix Cycle is why we appear to have so much chaos – and progress – in the world right now. This is why we also have so many “rising stars” among our young people today. They are here for a reason – to light our way into a better future during the new Phoenix Cycle that is dawning right before our very eyes. What we do today will have repercussions for the next 500 years (and beyond) – what an opportunity we have to change the world for the better!

          In closing, I’d like to share with you the final stanza of one of my all-time favorite poems, “Ode” (1873) by Arthur O’Shaughnessy (1844-1881), which describes the passing of the torch from one generation of “dreamers, shapers, singers, and makers” to the next – as we prepare ourselves and our inheritors for all the challenges and opportunities that await humankind during the new Phoenix Cycle:

“Great hail!” we cry to the comers

From the dazzling unknown shore;

Bring us hither your Sun and your summers,

And renew our world as of yore;

You shall teach us your song’s new numbers,

And things that we dreamt not before;

Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,

And a singer who sings no more.

Webliography

          To learn more about the phoenix bird and its myriad meanings, readers may wish to consult the following resources.

·         http://www.theoi.com/Thaumasios/Phoinix.html à This illustrated reference page includes brief articles and citations from ancient Greek and Roman authors about the phoenix.

·         http://www.pantheon.org/articles/p/phoenix.html à Here is an overview of the phoenix myth from a multicultural perspective.

·         http://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/phoenix-constellation/ à This page provides an excellent introduction to the constellation Phoenix, which was named in honor of the mythical firebird.

·         https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ode_%28O'Shaughnessy%29 à This page contains the complete text of the poem “Ode” by Arthur O’Shaughnessy.

Ave Aurora Consurgens! (Latin) = Hail to the rising dawn! J

Hollydaze Quotemail #3: Winter Solstice 2015

Dear Friends & Colleagues:

This edition of Quotemail is dedicated to the Winter Solstice, when the Sun reaches its southernmost point on the celestial sphere as viewed from Earth. Winter officially begins @ 10:48 PM (CST) on Monday, December 21^st. Here’s a collection of poems about wintertime and the circling seasons.

“The Night Before Finals”

By Yours Truly (2005)

‘Twas the night before finals, and all through the dorm,

Not a student was sleeping, for that was the norm.

When on the South Quad there arose such a clatter,

Students rose from their books to see what was the matter.

And there on the face of the new-fallen snow

A message was written in letters aglow.

A scribe unbeknownst on the snowfield did write:

“A kewl Yule to you all, and to all a good night!”

“The North Wind Doth Blow”

(Traditional English Rhyme – 16^th Century)

The north wind doth blow, and we shall have snow.

And what will poor robin do then, poor thing?

He’ll sit in a barn, and keep himself warm,

And hide his head under his wing, poor thing.

The north wind doth blow, and we shall have snow.

And what will the dormouse do then, poor thing?

Rolled up like a ball, in his nest snug and small,

He’ll sleep till warm weather comes in, poor thing.

The north wind doth blow, and we shall have snow.

And what will the children do then, poor things?

When lessons are done, they must skip, hop, and run,

Until they have made themselves warm, poor things.

“A Song of Suns and Seasons”

By George MacDonald (1824-1905)

Excerpted from At the Back of the North Wind [1871], Chapter 37

The Sun is gone down, and the Moon’s in the sky;

But the Sun will come up, and the Moon be laid by.

The flower is asleep, but it is not dead;

When the morning shines, it will lift its head.

When winter comes, it will die – no, no;

It will only hide from the frost and the snow.

Sure is the summer, sure is the Sun;

The night and the winter are shadows that run.

“Welcome to the Sun”

Anonymous – Collected in Scotland (19th Century)

Note: In the Germanic, Keltik, and Slavic languages – as well as in Japanese – the Sun is feminine and the Moon is masculine.

Welcome to you, Sun of the seasons’ turning,

In your circuit of the high heavens;

Strong are your steps on the unfurled heights,

Glad Mother are you to the constellations.

You sink down into the ocean of want,

Without defeat, without scathe;

You rise up on the peaceful wave

Like a Queen in her maidenhood's flower.

Quotemail will be taking a short hiatus during the hollydaze break, but it will resume its fortnightly publication schedule on Friday, January 8^th, 2016.

In the meantime, may the calendar keep bringing Happy Hollydaze to you! :)

Rob