Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.
--Henri Matisse 

I awoke this morning to find the entire San Joaquin Valley filled with fog, like a great inland sea, with this mountain rising out of it like an island. While I have deepest sympathy for those who must live beneath this yearly inundation, sudden captives of Neptune, I revel in the glorious sunlight that saturates the fall leaves, here. Every tree is aglow, incandescent, beneath a cloudless, deep blue sky. As I brewed my coffee, a flock of wild pigeons suddenly burst from the slumbering woods of the eastern valley, rose into the morning light and threaded as one through the pines, like pure exaltation unleashed.  With the annual coming of the fog, a deep peace descends on this mountain, announcing the coming of the holy days. It is happiness itself to work in the radiant coolth of the autumnal sun, and I wish each of you a day of such usefulness, lit from within by the sun of joy.



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