It's Betsy-Tacy time again!

October is Betsy-Tacy month and once again I will be doing some nostalgia reading. Sarah at A library is a hospital for the mind is hosting the Maud Hart Lovelace reading challenge. Last year I was spending a lot of time at the the hospital with my mom who was dying of cancer ( and old age, she was 93) and it was a blessed relief to fall into Betsy's world for a few hours. It was a bookmark in time too as my grandmother would have been about the age of Betsy's older sister and it was easy to imagine life before the World Wars and radios when nearly every house had an upright piano! This year I'm reading Betsy and the Great World and Betsy's Wedding. I never encountered Betsy as a child and read my first book three years ago for the first challenge. I have enjoyed every one!

Poetic Knowledge Book Club--Descartes Part two

I've been pondering what to write about for this second half of the chapter on Descartes and his legacy. How nature study is fundamental to a poetic vision of the universe? How nature study grounds us and makes it harder for the promoters of scientific theories to waylay us on our journey to Heaven? My healing from my own public school education? None of these really formed a cohesive theme.

Then something in the readings took hold. It was this quote by Emerson,"I advise teachers to cherish mother-wit. I assume that you will keep the grammar, reading, writing, and arithmetic in order; 'tis easy and of course you will. But smuggle in a little contraband wit, fancy, imagination, thought." Now, Taylor considers this a reactionary statement, but it reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from G.K. Chesterton," As long as wit is mother wit it can be as wild as it pleases." This is from Orthodoxy, the chapter called The Ethics of Elfland. Frankly, Taylor was beginning to depress me so a foray into Orthodoxy seemed a good antidote and I re-read that chapter.

Still, I wasn't sure what I wanted to say here but as I opened my Google News homepage I saw this article about Stephen Hawking Heaven is a Fairy Tale?? In the interview Hawkings states,"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is just a fairy story for people afraid of the dark." It seems to me that Stephen Hawkings represents the logical conclusion to Descartes reliance on the mind. Living in the mind has certainly been his experience and I think he is very brave, but also very wrong and lacking an understanding of fairy tales and (I hesitate to say this!) the universe in general. I just don't understand how anyone can look at the complexity and creativity of the universe from cell regeneration to the spiral of a galaxy and not see a Creator. I just can't. I have never been able to envision no God. Just like Chesterton says of elfland, 2 + 2 must equal 4 and the universe must have had a creator. It defies reason to think it is random. Chesterton, of course, says it best," There are certain sequences or developments (cases of one thing following another), which are, in the true sense of the word, reasonable. They are, in the true sense of the word, necessary. Such are mathematical and merely logical sequences. We in fairyland (who are the most reasonable of all creatures) admit that reason and that necessity." But to return to mother -wit or what we would call common sense I'm going to thank Rousseau here. He, I think, saw through Descartes sterile rationalism and sensed ( and promoted, although certainly didn't live himself) an education for children that Incorporated the family. As a homeschool mom I've come to appreciate educating my own children and realize what a great opportunity it is for healing and educating myself and for grounding my children in the "laws of elfland" and so protecting them from the "laws of educational theorists".

I'll close with a quote from Charlotte Mason, "Whatever extravagance he had seen fit to advance, Rousseau would still have found a following, because he had chanced to touch a spring that opened many hearts. He was one of the few educationalists who made his appeal to the parental instincts. He did not say," We have no hope of the parents, let us work for the children!" Such are the faint-hearted and pessimistic things we say today." Parents and Children.

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

This is one of my favorite Charlotte Mason quotes: Serenity of a Madonna "It is not for nothing that the old painters, however diverse their ideas in other matters, all fixed upon one quality as proper to the pattern Mother. The Madonna, no matter out of whose canvas she looks at you, is always serene. This is a great truth, and we should do well to hang our walls with the Madonnas of the early Masters if the lesson, taught through the eye, would reach with calming influence to the heart.

Betsy-Tacy

Every now and then I visit the Bonny Glen to see what's up in literature. The hobbits and I get caught up in swash-buckling adventures and it is good sometimes to see what the gentler folk are reading. Or to put it another way--sometimes I want to read something girly. I participated in the Betsy-Tacy read last October without blogging about it and thoroughly enjoyed all the books from the beginning when Betsy-Tacy meet to Heavens to Betsy which gets her through her freshman year of high school. This year I am reading Betsy in Spite of Herself, Betsy was a Junior, and Betsy and Joe. If you would like to participate stop by the wonderfully named blog--A library is a hospital for the mind and sign up. Or just start reading! These are very sweet books and will have you making fudge and singing along at the piano (or wishing you were).

Masaccio

Vasari's next artist of note is Masaccio and Vasari loves him! His rendering of feet really excites Vasari! People appearing to walk on tiptoe is a big pet peeve of Vasari's and Masaccio's feet are considered sublime! You can judge for your self. Unfortunately, Masaccio died suddenly at the age of 26.

Lorenzo Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise

I've been reading Vasari's Lives of the Artists. This is one of those books I bought for my daughter when she was on a Renaissance binge and meant to read but.... Well, I finally have a little time to read and it is pretty good! Vasari is very readable and when I think I could skip an artist as too obscure he corrects me. I had never heard of Lorenzo Ghiberti but according to Vasari and Michelangelo he is "worthy of heaven, itself". (it was Ghiberti's vanishing points that got them all excited!)

Dum cernit valvas aurato ex aere nitentes
In templo, Michael Angelus obstupuit:
Attonitusque diu, sic alta silentia rupit:
O divinum opus: O janua digna polo!

When Michaelangelo the panels saw
Gleaming upon the church in gilded bronze
Amaz'd he stood; after long wonder thus
The solemn silence broke:'O work divine!
O door worthy of heaven!'