Sunday Pickings

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

THE MORE LOVING ONE - by W.H. Auden

I trust I can safely post this without being accused of growing rich over the back of someone else: after all I only mean for you all to go in droves over to the site of this lady:

(Is that Moby Dick around her neck?) This is Maria Popova from BrainPickings, my favorite blog. Check out today’s posting for a reading (by Janna Levin) of the poem from which the above lines have been taken.

Must get her (first) book! Which collects her favorite themes in superbly written monographs. She is an academic, a scientist but also a spiritual catalyst if you ask me, with a heart that simply gravitates to the beautiful and wise side of life. I am not sure the above photo does her justice: I once watched her present a poetry event and she was the least pretentious person you could meet, considering her amazing talent, broad range and eclectic tastes.

She is all woman - but includes men all the time, yet without compromising on what truly births man and noursishes him and teaches him to walk on his own two feet, upright and brave; without raping Gaia and molesting the elfs or growing up into pedants and glowering shamans (VIPs) with carboncle eyes mesmerising the fainthearted beneath gold-plated laurels encrusted with diamonds; sceptres in hand, swirling the air into typhoons to whisk you off your seats and up, up, up into the churning air, under the millstone of their grinding minds.

Nah, she doesn't need a crown. Just buy her book.

photo woman with crown: Jared Subia on Unsplash