“[The] notion that man has a body distinct from his soul is to be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.

“For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”

                              — William Blake, from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Children in a playground at the edge of the vast and bountiful and mysterious and increasingly-dangerous sea (“increasingly” thanks to our stupidly-heedless “play”) — with glory stretching away, above and beyond.  Given, in part, what is happening these days, and what we should expect in the year to come, I decided to put a print of this image on my workday office wall.

Recommendations in this context:  Reread Moby Dick — skip the whaling-industry stuff, if you like — and watch Peter Wier’s The Last Wave.  As profound and prophetic and poetic as you could want!

And here is a pertinent poem by the great, late (d. 1994) Norwegian poet, Rolf Jacobsen, translated by Robert Bly:

    Sssh

Sssh the sea says
Sssh the small waves at the shore say, sssh
Not so violent, not
So haughty, not
So remarkable,
Sssh
Say the tips of the waves
Crowding around the headland’s
Surf. Sssh
They say to people
This is our earth
Our eternity.

And, lastly, and particularly with Christmas in mind, a short poem of mine:

        THIRST

Believe it
or not, the well
is here.

But you must fall a long way
to reach
that water.

And from there,
someone else
must draw you up.

I love to quote this from Tiny Tim, on many occasions, but none better than on Christmas:

“God bless us every one.”