Perceived

I am forgetting what I learned, with the people. It is to sit with them and dream, not of other things, but together. I am forgetting what I learned, at the fire side. There is no condition of life. My longing is my truest friend. It never leaves even when the ocean is thick with grief, even when the sea overspills with joy. I am forgetting.

The spirit of play

I recently attended a thrilling workshop – honestly, it thrilled – helping individuals become greater change agents in their spheres. On the ground with the people they love, in places they care about. I wrote something about it here.

A trick of etymology, the origins of America

From the Online Etymology dictionary:

America 1507,

in Cartographer Martin Waldseemüller’s treatise “Cosmographiae Introductio,” from Mod.L. Americanus, after Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) who made two trips to the New World as a navigator and claimed to have discovered it. His published works put forward the idea that it was a new continent, and he was first to call it Novus Mundus”New World.” Amerigo is more easily Latinized than Vespucci. The name Amerigo is Germanic, said to derive from Goth. Amalrich, lit. “work-ruler.” The O.E. form of the name has come down as surnames Emmerich, Emery, etc. The Italian fem. form merged into Amelia. Colloquial pronunciation “Ameri-kay,” not uncommon 19c., goes back to at least 1643 and a poem that rhymed the word with away. Amerika “U.S. society viewed as racist, fascist, oppressive, etc.” first attested 1969; the spelling is German, but may also suggest the KKK.