by beatriceotto | life, sharing
One day I decided not to rely solely on Charlton Heston’s interpretation of El Cid but to go to the original (with the aid of a parallel translation). The epic Song of the Cid dates from around the second half of the 12th century and in places has a touching...
by beatriceotto | beauty, enchantment, life, sharing
I’m always touched by people connecting to us from the past, throwing their light into an unknown future in addressing, in a human and friendly way, people not even born. George Eliot and Charlotte Bronte do this by addressing readers directly, and you, reading...
by beatriceotto | discovery, life
The candour of this statement struck me, and also reassured me that my own paltry attempts at living a ‘moral and compassionate existence’ are no worse than can be expected of an average human in a human world. I accepted very young that questioning is...
by beatriceotto | authenticity, innocence, life
This current and timeless phrase – with that curious ‘inmate’ alongside the energetic ‘active’ – comes from Wordsworth’s image of himself as an infant, tapping into some greater connectivity than mere wifi systems and smart...
by beatriceotto | inspiration, life
On this day, which many of us celebrate as being connected in some way to light and at very least to peace on earth and goodwill to all, let’s enjoy the little known fact that in the Divine Comedy: Dante ends each book with the word “stars”.And so he...
by beatriceotto | life, resilience
This year has seen a surfeit of old people whose hold on life has slipped. Hoyle is an ornery character but one who nevertheless has the spirit of nuannaarpoq, partly by turning a health problem to good use: easily out of breath when he walks, he just walks more...
by beatriceotto | kindness, life
As Seamus Heaney describes it, this is a ‘heavenly father’ who makes wonderful use of the quality of omnipotence, by drawing on his boundless attention, energy and bandwidth to cherish every fallen sparrow, egg or other fragile life form, through all...
by beatriceotto | beauty, freedom, happiness, life
This lovely phrase, in a collection of essays by the poet Seamus Heaney, struck me as being in large part what the world is aiming for when it talks about sustainability, sustainable development goals and related rather dry terms. It is combined with an interesting...
by beatriceotto | beauty, discovery, life, time
Recently found a scrap of paper with a list of 1960s-1980s progressive rock and similar bands. I believe I may have jotted them down in a conversation with one of my brothers during which we were revisiting songs we listened to at the time. To show you how young I...
by beatriceotto | beauty, life
Balint is the protagonist of a wonderful trilogy chronicling the declining decades of the Hungarian aristocracy in the years leading to the First World War. He is also one of its most thoughtful, endearing characters. Here he ponders a moment beneath a night sky and...
by beatriceotto | life
Grossman quotes the Greek and also used this as the title of one of his books. The eternal river, always flowing, always changing, and always the same. May it carry you safely. “Everything flows, everything changes,” said the Greek. Source: Vasily...
by beatriceotto | freedom, life
I love hedgehogs and see them as an ambling, loveable, flea-scratching symbol of hope and freedom, as well as the rights of the scruffy and marginal to be scruffy and marginal. If they can survive in your garden, your garden is healthy. If the species survives our...
by beatriceotto | happiness, life
A surprising insight by the author of All Quiet on the Western Front. You will never see this month the same way again, here proposed as a metaphor for a stage of life, the ninth month of a lifespan of twelve. So many fine aspects of a human existence, including...
by beatriceotto | life
This sense of completion in an artist’s life struck me, and it made me think about what I may be neglecting now. I take as read the implication that he means ‘nothing important’. A no-regrets summary of life. It also echoes something my father has...
by beatriceotto | life
If you can die concluding that by far the greater number of people in the world are very good, you have had a good life or perhaps you have just lived it well. Here, Steinbeck concludes his slim, rich account of a month spent in the Soviet Union at the height of the...
by beatriceotto | authenticity, life, resilience
Lopez’s description of a tough animal encountered on a summer’s day, arresting him with its direct gaze, reminds me of the sightings of birds we enjoy in our garden. In one spot, we used a pair of terracotta pots, about a foot high and nearly as much...
by beatriceotto | discovery, life
Now I know why it’s called ‘seventh’ heaven – it takes only seven steps to get there. I stumbled upon this revelation while doing the Spring Circular, the 10km round robin walk with which I’ve been savouring the season’s renewal. A...
by beatriceotto | happiness, life, moments
This thoughtful reminder of the splendour of everyday happiness made its way into the nuannaarpoq pipeline long before the world we love was swept by pandemic. How many of those in quarantined ‘exile’, or ill, or on their deathbed may be recalling with...
by beatriceotto | authenticity, inspiration, life
Barry Lopez came up with this touching idea of comparing perfect integrity in a human life to aspects of nature: the way light works, wind moves, birds sing, or seed pods burst. They are all good models for coherence in life. ‘I wish the order of my life to be...
by beatriceotto | life, resilience
I started viewing handfuls of healthy soil, forest or otherwise, with new respect when I learned of their teeming life forms. That awareness has now extended to including rotting old tree trunks and stumps, smothered with moss and lichen and countless invisible...
by beatriceotto | beauty, life
Grossman’s essay on the Sistine Madonna by Raphael is one of the most splendid responses to art I have read. He deploys all his descriptive powers to encompass what it means to him and to us. Above all, it is a symbol of precious, tender, vulnerable, resilient...
by beatriceotto | life
Vasily Grossman, who lived through and witnessed some of the vilest episodes of human history, never lost his belief in humanity as embodied in the smallness of an individual human being with quirks, dreams, longings and a capacity for love and kindness.He is, for me,...
by beatriceotto | life
A marvelously succinct summary of the vast universe that is the evolution of a single human being, with all its subtleties and complexities.’A human being in this aged nation of ours is a very wonderful whole, the slow creation of long interchanging...
by beatriceotto | life, memory, resilience
Having sent a new year card to a friend, I learned from her partner that she passed away last year. He sent me his in memoriam with a rich array of photos. Exactly as I remembered her, vivacious and luminous, beautiful and strong. The line quoted here seemed a...
