The Sunday Morning Muse, February 10, 2013

What a great sunrise today..... purples and light orange stretched out over the entire hill across the river as far as I can see. Already productive.... ordered more flower seeds....finally found the 6 foot Amaranthus called Velvet Curtains, that I like so much. I got the wrong kind last year....and they only grew about 2 feet. The giant burgundy plumes are a favorite around here. The Dreadlocks amaranthus is also one that I grow every
year and share with others. It is so unusual and one of the last flowers left in the garden in Fall.  It is really a cool plant.

Thinking ahead to spring. Musing about buying more poetry books, and fewer books on gastroenterology. I also resolve to read at least one love story. (Meanwhile, I just ordered The Wild Life of Our Bodies: Predators, Parasites and Partners that Shape Who We are Today.) I got the idea to order that one from reading a story in the paper today about probiotics.  Antibiotics are stripping our guts of good bacterium as well as the bad....and we need to keep things in balance or risk some nasty digestive problems.

I'm not a total medical geek. I still find time to read an occasional Longfellow poem, or Whitman, or Dickinson. And that is a good thing.  I read where some anti intellectuals are trying to steer people away from taking "liberal arts" courses in favor of more "practical" fields of study. Their argument is that Philosophy
majors don't get jobs. Perhaps. I didn't major in Philosophy, but I did graduate from a Liberal Arts College. My courses in  Philosophy...and art, and theatre and history and literature opened up new worlds
for me and helped to develop my critical thinking skills. I got a window into world views and ideas that shape who I am today. I have used a lot of that knowledge time and time again in my life, in every job that I had.

And it expanded my life in ways I could never imagined for myself. I'm grateful for those courses. Even the religion classes I had to take as a requirement. I didn't know it at the time, but learning ABOUT religion...and the many religions out there...how they formed, who was in charge, how religious texts came about, etc. gave me enough insight to know we have to figure out a lot of things for ourselves. No one really has all the answers.

It is one thing to learn computers. It is another to have something to say. We are not meant to be empty vessels travelling through this life getting by simply learning a trade and repeating it day to day until we are old and die. I'm not saying we don't need a job, it is obvious we do. But I think these clam shells out there who have no sense of history, art, music, and yes philosophy, only have a small appreciation of what this human experience offers.