Collections

Sunday Collection: Stardust

I made this collage to remember a moment of magic this week.

I was on the tube* when a young woman got on the carriage and stood with her back to my row of seats. She was strikingly beautiful, her cloud of long curly hair sprayed with golden glitter.

As she swayed there with the movement of the train, she put her hand to the back of her neck, lifted her hair and shook it. As she did, the air came alive with shining fragments of gold which settled gently on my boring black raincoat and the pinstriped suits of the two gentlemen next to me. They didn’t notice, but I bet they have by now!

What a gift she unknowingly gave us, that sprinkling of stardust on a grey Friday morning.

* Transatlantic translation: London underground trains/subway

And stardust of all kinds has been sprinkled around the blogosphere this week.

Leo of Zen Habits has a post called 25 Ways to Help a Fellow Human Being Today. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone reading this picked one of the 25 ways and did it next week. My favourite is the last one:

• Love. Simply finding ways to express your love to others, whether it be your partner, child, other family member, friend, co-worker, or a complete stranger … just express your love. A hug, a kind word, spending time, showing little kindnesses, being friendly … it all matters more than you know.

Leo himself says in the comments that he worried his post would be laughed at because it’s corny. Maybe it is, a little, but it’s also true.

Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, sprinkles lots of stardust (organic) with his shining example of how to live lightly in the middle of New York City. This week he’s made an appeal for our help to lobby for radical environmental change. This is what he says:

As one of his constituents, I intend to ask Representative Nadler to support an effective global warming mitigation policy that is based not on what is politically possible but on what is scientifically necessary.

(Just imagine the havoc of peace we could cause if we didn’t have to consider what is ‘politically possible’.)

All you need to do is a cut and paste job on text in Colin’s post, then email it to him with your personal details. He will collect all the emails and forward them. You can even do it if, like me, you’re not a US citizen; just put the line ‘From a world citizen to whom American policy makes a huge difference‘ in the email subject line.

Go on, it won’t take you long.

Thanks to Hudson’s Notebook by the way both for pointing out the ‘world citizen’ addendum to Colin’s appeal, and for sprinkling us with some wild and precious Mary Oliver this week.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been pouring out his particular brand of magic in London this week. Barney Leith writes of joining representatives from many faiths at a reception hosted by Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to hear a meditation/homily by the Dalai Lama. I know you’ll find Barney’s account of this event and what the Dalai Lama said both interesting and moving.

And at Tongue in Cheek, it was dandelion seeds drifting down, not stardust. (Are you getting fed up with the stardust theme yet? Well tough, live with it!) Corey had the happy idea of asking her readers to find a dandelion-themed link, post it in the comments, and make a wish. It’s not too late, why not join in?

And now nothing to do with blogging, but my dear friend Betty Stardust had her 70th birthday this week, with a surprise party today which was fabulous, and which I was so happy to attend. I should say Stardust is just a nickname, but it should be her real name because she showers magical warmth wherever she goes. Lots of love, Betty.

And to end with, never forget: we are stardust, we are golden.

Have a blessed week, everyone.

© 2008 Anchors and Masts.