Monthly Archives: September 2005

90 Great Comments List (guidelines)

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Comments are a reflection of how good your blog is. In some cases, they are amazing posts in themselves. After six months of blogging, I’ve come to realize that interaction through comments is the most gratifying part of it.

David Bonta at Via Negativa posted some of his better comments from recent posts, and it made for an interesting read. I thought I’d play with that. Plus Duncan over at The Blog Herald is having 100 blogs in 100 days contest, so why not one on comments. And thanks also to Darren Riley’s Blog Crush idea at Problogger.

If you want to show off how inspiring your posts are, write a post which includes the following items.

  1. Feature some great comments from your blog. Comments need to make some sense on their own. Short conversations are fine. They can be funny, inspiring, beautiful, or just plain good writing. Post as many as you like.
  2. Please include links to:
    a) the 90 Great Comments list post.
    b) GlitteringMuse
    c) the author of the comment and
    d) the post which inspired the comment.
  3. Encourage your readers to do the same on their blogs…I know there are lots of great comments out there!

Send me the link to your Great Comments post by email (garnet at glitteringstew dot com), or comment on this post.

That’s it. It’s pretty simple. I’ll check out your post and choose a great comment daily for however many days. Everyone can share all the wit, inspiration and fun their blogs inspired.

If I really get 90 great comments posted here, at the end I’ll post a public vote on the Very Best of the Greatest Comments. So this could end up a real contest. Maybe even with some prizes. We’ll see how far this goes.

I’d like to start the day off with two favorite comments to posts I wrote.

The first is by Liz at Letting Me Be. She has taken a fancy to my blog and has given me enviable support in her comments. (I think she treats everyone with the same generosity, but I’d like to think otherwise) This comment responded to a little sad poem I wrote. (as a comment actually, to another poem) Thank you, Liz for your many wonderful comments.

My forehead
moves to frowining aggravation
to think that someone might have been
sending words that have no thought
no moment’s tender taking
to spare for a kind one,
a strong and gentle man

for Garnet
from
Liz

The second comment is from a post about responsibility, and I suggested we (Americans) are all responsible for the failings of the US at home and in the world. The full post is here.

Here is the comment, made by Karen

As a Canadian, who met and fell in love with an American, then moved here and had a child …all within the last 6 years… it breaks my heart to see how hard Americans seem to be on themselves.

Last year was a tough year for my family. We struggled financially, went without several comforts, no gas to heat our home, no stove to cook on, no running hot water… yet we knew in our hearts it was our responsibility to turn our situation around. It wasn’t the country’s fault, it wasn’t the government’s fault, and even though the sudden stop in cash flow came as a result of an injury on the job suffered by my husband, we didn’t blame his company, his Union, the inability to qualify for disability…

No. We looked at this country as the land of opportunity. We borrowed from family and friends to turn opportunity into financial stability and we paid back every cent within 14 short months. It wasn’t easy, but it was our responsibility – and we met it head on.

I say this not to impress, but to impress upon any who care to read this that America really is the land of the free, rich and flowing with opportunities, filled to the brim with caring souls …also ready to fight the good fight for the less able abroad.

In it’s own way, on a much longer time-line, this great nation has earned its richness through trials, tribulations, making mistakes along the way and learning from those mistakes to evolve higher.

Yes, it is just a child when compared with the overall age of nations… and yet, in many ways it is far more enlightened than some nations centuries older… nations who choose not to learn from their mistakes, choose not to grow, choose to ignore their responsibilities to themselves and their people.

As a country, America doesn’t have to be the first to respond… the first to send troops, send aid, send food, send help of any kind. They don’t have to be last to respond. They could choose not to respond at all. They could sit back and enjoy their riches and look solely and exclusively after their own, pretend they are an island unto themselves …and then where would the world be?

When is the world going to highlight this nation’s generosity, instead of pointing a finger asking — is this all your giving?

As a nation, is America supposed to be embarrassed by its own fortunate circumstances? Would the world think better of this country if it were more humble about its own wealth? Would it make the country as a whole less of a target in the eye of terrorists? Somehow, I doubt it.

It reminds me of the parable and the 3 bags of gold.

One buries his gold and waits for his master’s return. Another invests it in a bank and earns a small return. And the third…

I don’t think the USA is meant to bury its gold, nor sit on it like some countries have. I think it should stand up proud in its accomplishments, hard-won has they have been, and inspire others to greatness in the process.

Just my humble opinion. I hope it doesn’t offend.

Please be kind to yourself.

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COMMENTS SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

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If you want to show off how inspiring your posts are, write a post which includes the following items.

1. Feature some great comments from your blog. Comments need to make some sense on their own. Short conversations are fine. They can be funny, inspiring, beautiful, or just plain good writing. Post as many as you like.
2. Please include links to:
a) the Great Comments List guidelines.
b) GlitteringMuse
c) the author of the comment and
d) the post which inspired the comment.
3. Tell your readers to do the same on their blogs…Spread the word. I know there are lots of great comments out there!

Send me the link to your Great Comments post by email (garnet at glitteringstew dot com), or comment on the 90 Great Comments post.

That’s it. It’s pretty simple. The nice thing is that you get linked to, as well as your commenter, and I get a link as well. Linkiness all around! I’ll check out your post and choose a great comment daily or so for however many days. Everyone can share all the wit, inspiration and fun their blogs inspired.

If I really get 90 great comments posted here, at the end I’ll post a public vote on the Very Best of the Greatest Comments. So this could end up a real contest. Maybe even with some prizes. We’ll see how far this goes.

Blog Crush

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blog crushI have several blog crushes. These are the writers I look forward to reading, who stir my thoughts, who amaze me with their evocative language, their unusual ideas, whose sites are designed with flair, and perhaps because they offer comments on visits to me.

Although this list is far from complete, I include in my top favorites these wonderful bloggers: Liz, Ned, Spicey Cauldron, Meredith and Akilesh, Jessamyn, Antonia, Tony, Jack, Stormwind, and GEL.

As an aspiring poet dabbler, I lean toward more florid language, descriptions of the indescribable, of my deepest urges, my unspoken feelings. I think the person whose site stirs these deep reservoirs the most consistently is Yemanja. If I had a can of spray paint, I’d go to the local highway overpass in the middle of the night and signal for all to see: Garnet is swooning over Yemanja.

Her blog is beautifully designed, always pleasant to visit. She delves into the spiritual realm of passion with her sensual, rich poetry and photos. I like that she doesn’t shy from expressing her deepest, most subtle desires, and that she does so with such accessible, florid poetry. Yemanja stirs passions I never knew I had, and that’s saying quite a bit! (ahem, I refer to my birth given attraction to men) She walks a fine line, and does so with aplomb. She also seems to understand where I am coming from on my blog as well, and expresses so in her comments. Thank you Yemanja, for your beautiful, inspiring existence.

If you’d like to post your crush, go check this post at Darren’s site. He suggests parameters for deciding your crush and how to list it on his site. It’s easy and fun. Go for it. Proclaim your crush!

times

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…times we fall through
moldy, scratchy thatch
to stiff, pine planks,
losing memory, stones
and sonnets. forgetting.
—

There is a strange emptiness I often feel at the first day of cool stillness in Fall. Today is overcast. The wet air leaches warmth, persistent in its chill. Persistent and immobile. It is here to stay, moving in. Memories of languid, long, endless Summer days float just beyond reach. The reality of suffering in the South is no dream, however. Their’s is aching, palpable emptiness, loss. They have no luxury of daydreams.

Yet this calm chill comforts me, reminds me all things change. It is time to recharge, request a new sheet, a clean slate. Time to move on, shift gears. Let Summer memories become the dreams they now are. Let tragedy’s lessons sink in, brand their mark on memory.

The garden outside my window is still rich with green textures. The long, fragrant, golden trumpets of Brugmansia herald (and hope for) a few more sunny weeks to come. All is not lost. But never the same.

At work I am having to work closely with those in power and money, the trustees who support my orchestra, but also control it. I used to assume they were automatically corrupted by their power, but I’m beginning to see their genuine interest in my art, in the success of my orchestra, even though I may not always agree with them. They know things about money and success I cannot know from my position. They have experience we can use. Our orchestra needs them, whether we like it or not. It’s never black and white.

Thinking of events in the world, in the US, my country, I feel frisky with a new kind of hope. The suffering of millions in the South will not be in vain. Our eyes are open. We see the chilly, calculating responses of our current administration, which seems to be more of a power machine than human leadership. And we also see the fervent, human response, the support given by millions; human responses, neither conservative nor liberal, just human. We see each other’s hearts, that we are not so different as we thought. We see where we could go if we came together to solve problems.

Our enemies are not each other. They are the power systems which corrupt and mislead. We cannot afford to be mislead. We only have each other. We only have each other and one small planet.

The chilly air settles into my bones. It’s time for action, for change. Especially since I’m late for work.

Love’s Font

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Here is a wonderful, spiritual post from Meredith at Graceful Presence. This is beautifully honest and heartfelt musing inspired by yogic philosophy. Later she quotes the New Testament, capturing the true presence of the spirit of Jesus, in the colors and mood I think he intended his teachings. It’s worth reading the whole thing. I love how she gently explores the different layers of inner spaciousness, starting with time, then breath, then emotions, and through compassion to infinite love.

When I meditate, which unfortunately is only occasionally, I find the first thing I need to do is relax the tension in my chest, around my sternum and heart. Almost instantly, I feel a warmth spread through my limbs. It’s almost as if a space is literally created around my heart to allow it to feel what it always yearns to feel: unbounded love and forgiveness.

Presence: In quiet moments of solitude, I have been turning to the spaciousness of the present moment. I have been allowing this feeling of spaciousness within me expand, just to see how far it can go, and observing what the experience of it is for me. The intensity of this experience is subtle. In the simplicity of observing the present moment, noting what thoughts come and go, hearing the flies buzzing by and the soft clucking of the chickens, feeling the warm breezes on my skin, and observing my own breath… there is a prevailing fresh quality of resting in Presence. I still don’t know the answer to that question or how far this can go yet, because there is no end to the in-the-moment experience of this. In other words, each moment of feeling spaciousness is a new moment – I feel it expansively and freshly. The experience of this for me is of open possibility, and a quiet peaceful serenity. Though occasionally disturbing thoughts surface in the present moment of observing, I am becoming practiced in just allowing these troubling thoughts dissolve. When I realize turmoil, and then become less absorbed within it, I feel a humbling compassion toward myself. This is fertile ground for love.