Today

Thought For The Day

Looking across the Seine from a construction walkway on Notre Dame

In 1417, if you happened to live in Germany, what you were was designated at birth and it was pointless to attempt to alter the facts of your life. Born rich, poor, regal or simple that was your lot. That was 600 years ago you say? Yes, indeed it was but in the greater scheme of things what is six hundred years in a world that measures its growth in not hundreds but thousands of years? As I wander back to the beginnings of things and see how we have lived upon this spinning globe, how we have treated each other, who and what we believe in and how we pay out our short lives, I am humbled by the good fortune I have to live here and now. I am especially pleased that you are here too.

Herb Ratliff, March 30, 2012, All Rights Reserved

River Whisper

Thought For The Day

The river whispers,

welcome,

as she moves 

downstream.

Orb webs glisten in the

morning light. 

Jewels of dew

adorn this quaint boudoir.

I can feel you here.

Perfect upright wings

of waiting baetis

preen for their 

wedding dance.

Breakfasting trout

dimple 

the stream

while an avian overture

resonates 

in the early 

air.

©Herb Ratliff, March 29, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Lift

Thought For The Day

Who hasn't wanted to fly,

to trace their pointed fingers

through the saffron rays of sunshine,

slicing clouds with  Damascus swords 

while rolling effortlessly 

between the earth and sky?

Who has not wanted to be warmed 

by eider down, dressed in crimson,

dance in Ostrich plumes, 

soar

on condor wings?

All on the 

lift

of a feather.

©Herb Ratliff, March 28, 2012, All Rights Reserved

What are you?

Thought For The Day

And so I said,

"What are you?"

It puzzled me, the question.

I felt weak and somehow like I was being challenged.

Then it came to me that it was me, I was asking the question

and I was asking it in a way that was meant to intimidate.

"What are you?"

There it is again. Who's asking it, you or me?

The truth is, it doesn't matter who asks the question.

But, I do know the answer, now.

Enough. 

I am enough.

©Herb Ratliff, March 27, 2012, All Rights Reserved.

Don't Blink

Thought for the day

Have you ever noticed how often a new word shows up in you reading after you have "discovered" it? It is not only a phenomenon that happens with words. It happens with specific pieces of information too.
A couple of weeks ago I had lunch with a friend who is involved in a business enterprise that promotes and distributes tools and equipment that enhances education. I am using education in a very broad sense here. It turns out that education is one of those things that is happening all the time if you are paying attention and some times whether you are paying attention or not. One of the products that he sells is a printer of sorts. It is actually a prototype machine that takes information created on a two dimensional palette, such as a drawing or software instruction and creates a three dimensional object. He actually made a crescent wrench with my name on it for me but there are many applications and instruction sets.
The "Printer" is a variation on the Hewlett Packard Ink Jet Printer technology. The materials used for the objects are polymers that have different characteristics that can be permanent or temporary depending on the object to be created. Some of the structure is made of bridge material and some is permanent. I can tell you without equivocation that it was  a fascinating example of bridging or extrapolating from one piece of knowledge to another with remarkable results. I had never seen anything like it before that day and yet it would only be a matter of a day or two before I would see yet another iteration of this process.
I am a big fan of TED.com, a remarkable web site that has a compilation of ideas, the likes of which you have never seen, available for your perusal at the cost of your time. I am a regular viewer of the "Ted Talks",  you'll just have to take a look if you wish to open that remarkable door. In any case, I was looking over a list of new "Talks" when I spotted a medical one that promised to discuss a new process by which organs could be created.
You guessed it. It was another iteration of the ink jet printer that used a kind of bridge material along with stem cell material that was capable of creating a human bladder. What's even more amazing is that this is not new technology. They brought out a boy who was alive and in college as the result of this technology.
It made me realize that there is a lot of good going on in this world and I need to know that and pay attention to it. It also pointed out rather clearly to me that one of the great advantages of learning is that it tends to piggy back. Learn something and that leverages you to yet another piece of information. It seems endless.

©Herb Ratliff, March 26, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Tripping The Light Fantastic

Thought For The Day

It is said the light from distant stars reaches us long
after the stars have ceased to be.
So too will our light last beyond our days upon the soil,
touching lives and leaving memories
to be considered
long after we have gone.



©Herb Ratliff, March 23, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Today

Thought For The Day

You can't have it back you know.

One.

That's it.

No, this is yours, this one, right here,

designed, tailor made, just for you

and,

I don't mean to press the issue but,

it's the only one you will ever have,

so it goes without saying:

Treat it like it's special.

Today!

Herb Ratliff, March 22, 2012, All Rights Reserved

"You talkin' to me?"

Thought For The Day

The Ravens,

in waistcoats and monocles

postulate punctilious  platitudes.

Did you know harrumphs

originated from bird brains?

I believe one of them in the far field

had a cane and resembled

a character from Bleak House.

There is no corn here and yet they peck away

at the larder of the mockingbirds

and tufted titmouse.

It is not strength

when you stomp on

a child.

Ahh, the hawk arrives

and

away

the would be despots.

Power lives

in the shadow

of fear.

Herb Ratliff, March 21, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Opening

Thought For The Day

Spring,

the moment

when being wrapped

up

tightly

is no longer

a workable strategy.

It's time

to stretch

and show all

the work of art

you are.


Herb Ratliff, March 20, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Foggy Morning

Thought For The Day

Fog blankets the pasture.

A Blue Jay,

in love with her own voice

etches dissonance

in the morning silence.

There is no rancor

in the Angus

only

quiet satisfaction

in the lush field

before them,

even before

the sun

winks above the horizon.

Nothing ahead but

myriad possibilities.


Herb Ratliff, March 19, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Defining Moments

Thought For The Day

Albuquerque, NM

In the early months of 1967 I was working for Colgate Palmolive Co in the East Bay Area of California, Oakland in a general description and living in Walnut Creek. I had moved there about a year before because of the generosity of my "Uncle Chuck and Aunt Lorna" who provided lodging until I got on my feet. I secured employment in about two weeks and moved into my own apartment. I was twenty three, knew everything and had demonstrated it to anyone watching. I had no clear map for my future but rather took things as they came along. My first year with Colgate was successful and I showed promise to my managers enough so that my District Manager invited me for dinner to his house in typical California Style. After a pleasant dinner he invited me away from the rest of the family and we found a private place to sit and talk. Among other topics he broached my lack of a college degree. The gist of his comments amounted to this: When you get promoted and move into the next stage of your career, Product Manager in New York, you'll be judged with and compared to employees with a college degree. When you are compared you will not come out well. Given an equal evaluation in other areas, you will lose out to anyone with a degree.

Here's what he suggested. Based on our conversation he felt I could graduate in two years. He was prepared to offer me a leave of absence with a promise to rehire and place me back in the same job after graduation.

I thought long and hard about that offer and finally accepted the handwriting on the wall and made arrangements to go back to school for my degree. Everything that needed to happen did and in two years and a few months I graduated from the University of New Mexico.

Turned out I did not go back to Colgate. The offer was for a position in Oklahoma City. That did not fit my set of plans and so I took another direction. But I got to keep the degree anyway. And, I get to keep that no matter what else happens in my life.

Herb Ratliff, March 15, 2012, All rights Reserved.

Good Morning

Thought For The Day

The morning bursts with light and sound.

Share your light, Make your music,

Then listen.

Herb Ratliff, March 14, 2012, All Rights Reserved

It's In The Attitude

Thought For The Day

I'm not big on missionary work. I believe that conviction in a set of principles is best espoused by demonstrating them in your living practices, in other words creating interest and followers based on attraction, not promotion. So the best way to instill good manners in your children is to demonstrate good manners in your daily living. And, while I believe that, it doesn't hurt to have those principles supported by your culture's infrastructure. But, what is supported in this country's lifestyle infrastructure is not good manners, it is the absence of any manners at all.
I've already ranted about "bearing to the right" when you walk in public places so I won't go there again. Driving still requires that behavior, so that is a moot point. Language is one of the last crumbling structures of our culture and it has been in decline for quite a while. 
When we are feeling academic we refer to change in language as a dynamic, growing condition of healthy communication. That's a lovely idea but in truth what has happened to our language in many cases is the result of Sponge Bob and bad manners. It feeds the growing lack of respect we have for each other and ourselves.
This is all magnified by where we spend our time. Since I am single and live alone, I watch way too much television and TV is the bully pulpit for horrible communication practices. I really like college basketball, so I am in heaven now. It's March Madness, a month of lots of good basketball competition and wretched communication practices. One sees a dichotomy of excellence's on the screen: grace, skill, creativity, persistence and superhuman stretches of athleticism matched against language and communication abuses that send English Teachers into Monastic cells to hide. Do people really understand each other at all. When I see and hear college athletes in interviews it just makes me cringe.
And to add insult to injury these young men are headed for the NBA, sometimes after only one year of college where they will receive ridiculous amounts of money that they are incapable of handling with any intelligence. How did the people who manage the NCAA get to this point of view? Follow the money.
Anyway, here's the point. As usual, we are right where we are supposed to be. We didn't get here by mistake, it's the natural result of living with a love of self satisfaction over a life dedicated to the greater good. What does that mean? You tell me.

Herb Ratliff, March 13, 2011, All Rights Reserved

Faded Colors

Thought For The Day

Shadow Mountain, Montana  Photo by Herb Ratliff

Failures, 

whether spectacular 

or 

quiet and mostly unnoticed,

fuel growth 

or 

uncommon lethargy. 

And, like colors 

washed 

by cold rain,

tend toward

pale and expectant.

Herb Ratliff, March 12, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Connect

Thought For The Day

Colin Campbell Cooper

The room is full of noise

and movement.

People rise and swell 

like  the tide seeking a new level.

Across the room, 

I see you.

Your eyes move across the masses, 

then fall on mine.

They stop and rest on me for a moment.

"Hello, my love,

I've been looking for you." 

Herb Ratliff, March 9, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Questions, always the questions.

Thought For The Day

Life seemed perfectly fine until the little old lady in the funny hat said,"Which foot do you start with?"

l

Bonner's Ferry, Idaho

This is borrowed from my Thought For The Day series that I sent out this summer from the road trip.

I am staying on a ranch in Bonner's Ferry, Idaho. I hear the whinnying of a young, untrained sorrel. She's anxious to do what she was bred to do, handle cattle. She's a quarter-horse with muscles that bulge and quiver in readiness to perform. The distant sound of a dog barking is muffled by a soft wind blowing at 4 - 5 mph. It is a perfect night. The stars look like exploded fireworks in a sky lit by a full moon. 

The ranch is mostly quiet, things begin early here so rest is coveted when evening falls. The moon, full and bright gazes across the freshly mowed fields of hay. It is rolled in great disks and will serve as the staple forage through  a bitter cold winter where last year twenty eight feet of snow fell. 

A young coyote whose adolescent voice cracks is joining the chorus of the choir. 

This is the west and we are only minutes away from the spot Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe surrendered after successfully avoiding the army for months. His final words of surrender echo through the hills:

I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say, "Yes" or "No." He who led the young men [Olikut] is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are -- perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.

Are you listening to me?

Thought For The Day

Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre-Auguste Renoir 

Have you ever noticed that when you get together with a close friend or relative after a long absence, the

intense feeling of wanting to share things with them you feel they would understand in a much more

meaningful way than most folks? If what you wish to share with them is in a format that requires

preparation,presentation, waiting for assimilation and then awaiting comment (praise is the operative word

here), it seems a very long wait?  In the absorption of your offering, because of the closeness of mind and

spirit, there inevitably is a response in the form of an offering back to you either in a like format or yet

another format that illustrates the point you were making in the offering you gave in the first place. So, the

presentations alternate and  the desperation grows as each wait's for the praise but is given an alternate

offering in it's place seeking it's praise. This happy moment runs the risk of seriously eroding the good will of

both participants and yet, it is born of the love and longing for the company, each of the other. How often is,

what we seek, approval from someone we love and admire? That is not to say we do not seek the approval

of those we do not know, but admire. Approval and admiration is welcome from any audience. It is just

deigned from many, expected from some, and relished from a few. And then, there are those from whom but

a slight nod of approval would induce a profusion of ecstasy.

I have observed people visiting over lunch, drinks or even in the parking lot speaking with great enthusiasm

about something of the utmost importance. In this observation I have noted a kind of simultaneous delivery

of  information with very little, if any, response or appreciation directed back at the spirited offering. And all

parties in attendance participate at the same time Which on it's face could imply little interest in the other

speakers words. This is something I have noticed more often with a group of women than men. There is no

intended judgement here. It is merely an observation. Women tend not to seek solutions to be employed but

ears to hear their protestations. Men are far more interested in offering solutions and improvements. It's a

kind of social interchange that could, if you thought it through, completely mystify you. In the end I believe

that what is achieved is not so much the movement of information from one person to the other but rather a

kind of mutual bathing in words and ideas for the purpose of cleansing the absence, the awful, lonely,

unforgiving, indiscriminate absence.

Herb Ratliff, March 6, 2012, All Rights Reserved

Edward Kelly, The Real Music Man

Thought For The Day

Edward Kelly was no ordinary man. He was professionally trained as a civil engineer, but his heart was filled

with music. He is to this day the most generous man I have ever known. He was a devoted teacher and

willing to take on all comers. I became acquainted with him because he taught my sister, Jo Ann, to play the

violin. and one day after her lessons he inquired whether I might be interested in learning to do the same. I

thought I would and he began to teach me as well. The violin turned out to be an instrument that could not

hold my attention and so I eventually migrated to the baritone which had heft and volume which was much

more congruous with my personality at the time. After a fairly short teaching period he invited me to join a

small group of other boys he was teaching. There was a pianist, two coronet players, three trumpet players,

a trombonist and of course the principal player and teacher of all the instruments. He did this in his spare

time. Quite often he would provide transportation for us because most of us were one car families. Many of

the practice sessions were in his home and his wife would prepare treats for all of us after the practice. We

were preparing to go on the road. He took us to nursing homes, hospitals, women's clubs and wherever he

could find an audience to fine tune our presentation skills.

I can't remember the names of all the participants, but I remember how respectful we were of him, his

wife and his home. I remember accepting without question, the call to provide music in places where there

was very little harmony from day to day.

I remember, even then, wondering why he did this even though I can still remember the enthusiastic applause

from the wheelchaired audience.

He never received a dime for his lessons, but while he lived in a modest home and drove a modest

automobile, he had riches far greater than any other person I have ever met. And, he gave to others

without hesitation or thought of what he would receive in return.

Herb Ratliff, March 1, 2012, All Rights Reserved