Learned today that some scholars think the Panchatantra is the origin of all fairy tales. That’s probably not entirely true, but it is one of the oldest sources. It was written in Sanskrit in the 3rd Century BCE by Vishna Sharma who gathered his material from even older versions. Tales from the Panchatantra have spread widely. Today they can be found from Java to Iceland. The enduring/endearing power of folk tales is the subject of a...
Read More
This photo makes me smile. I found it in a collection of internet photos. No credit. No explanation. But TEAPOTS filled with flowers decorating a handrail made me stop flipping through the photos and wonder. Who planted these? Who thought to do that with teapots? Now, that’s a person I’d like to know. Talk about making the world a little better. Talk about making a little part of your environment greener. Better than better, flower...
Read More
Saw a bumper sticker at a stoplight today. It said WWJD? I’m not up on my texting terms. Took me a minute–What Would Jesus Do? Our computer-savy dogs are also engaged in a story that can be expressed in a single line–My Dog Ate My Homework. No further explanation needed. Narrative is a coherent system of stories, like Biblical stories or Greek myths. Meta-narrative is an understanding so deeply embedded in the culture that...
Read MoreMy son and I are walking through Chinatown in Los Angeles when I spot baskets of a fruit I’ve never seen. I ask the vendor what it’s called. He answers in something that sounds like Chinese, but might have been Malay. He beckons for me to follow him. In the back of the store, next to the dried fish, he whacks the fruit open and offers me one of the large teardrop pods. It’s sweet, custardlike in texture, maybe slightly slimy...
Read MoreMy mother collects things that once belonged to members of the family, pictures, keepsakes, her mother’s china, her mother’s mother’s china . . .. That includes ghosts. Every family has them. If you’ve haven’t heard the stories, then you haven’t asked. A common motif is the clock that stopped, the pet that died, or the mirror that cracked at the precise moment when someone passed between the worlds. A stranger crashed...
Read MoreOK, since the last photo got lots of comment, I can’t resist adding this one. Again, it’s my son and his daughter in a museum. Right after the photo was taken, they were told “you can’t do that” by a guard. Ethan, my son, puzzled a moment and asked why not. “This is a museum, not a playground,” was the answer. “In our family we ________(fill in the blank). We can fill in the blank, because...
Read More