Horseshoe Curve
There is only one map to the journey of life and it lives within your heart. — Willie Nelson Horseshoe Curve is the engineering feat that filled in two river valleys and scraped away mountain sides so that travel was quicker and less hazardous as America expanded westward. When trains could finally cross the Allegheny Mountains, they replaced the slow canal boats and the dangerous ways a portage railroad hauled them over the mountains. Otherwise, people traveled forest trails by foot, horse and oxcart. The Horseshoe was gouged out of the mountainsides and the river valleys were filled by laborers [mainly European immigrants] who used crude wheelbarrows and shovels, sledges and picks. The railroad opened on February 15, 1854. Passenger travel around the 2,375-foot-long, 1,300-foot-wide Horseshoe peaked in the 1940s, with over fifty trains a day carrying people around that 220-degree curve, which Hitler targeted as part of the Nazi plan to cripple the United States [Operation Pastorius]. Today, one silvery passenger train rounds the Horseshoe Curve, Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvania #42 approaches near ten in the morning. The westbound Pennsylvania #43 returns eight hours later. Upon approach, conductors announce the Curve. Some speak of its history and the construction. They tell riders which side of the train will face the Horseshoe so that passengers in the back can see those ahead and those in front can see where they’ve been, as well as people at the National Historic Landmark waving and applauding the travelers’ journeys, where some may experience what Lillian Smith understood, I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.
Making Hot Sauce
Each of us, as we journey through life, has the opportunity to find and to give his or her unique gift. Whether this gift is quiet or small in the eyes of the world does not matter at all-not at all; it is through the finding and the giving that we may come to know the joy that lies at the center of both the dark times and the light. — Helen Luke A Meditation This week, I learned that making hot sauce is easy and amazing. Beyond vinegar, salt, sweeteners and dozens of peppers [from sweet Bells to Carolina Reapers and Ghosts], fruits, vegetables and herbs can be added to create a vast variety of flavors and heats. Tuesday evening, Trina Goggins, a member of Phipps Conservatory’s Urban Gardening group, shared her fascination with growing peppers and making hot sauce. And I learned a lot more as my medium-hot group rough-chopped one quarter of a red onion, a few garlic cloves [not whole bulbs!], sweet green and red and a jalapeno pepper, a peach and some parsley. Then we pureed those chunks in a food processor with brown sugar, salt and a cup of apple cider vinegar. After simmering a few minutes, we funneled our hot sauce into glass jars. Our second concoction contained ginger and lots of fresh, sweet pineapple. Wow! Write for recipes from: succeedandsoar@aol.com Another, Wow! A second Helen Luke [what a lady] quote that keeps me thanking Trina for how her ordinary chopping and cooking created flavors to savor and an extra-ordinary experience: To do the ordinary thing in an ordinary way is easy. To do the extraordinary thing in an extraordinary way is easy – both these kinds of activity are very common indeed. But to do the ordinary thing in an extraordinary way and the extraordinary thing in an ordinary way is quite staggeringly difficult and very rare indeed. It is the way of saints. Yum! BTW, The day after this cooking class, I watched Kardea Brown, a southern cook of Gullah/Geechee descent, teach Farmhouse Rules’ Nancy Fuller how to make Okra Soup with Shrimp. Most important to me was learning how to keep cooked okra crunchy instead of dissolving down to most disgusting slime imaginable [add fresh lemon]. Here’s the 3-minute video that demos how to cook ordinary okra and shrimp in an extra-ordinary way. Wanderings & Wonders Collection The inspiring and beautiful work in my Fine Art America collections is available as prints, framed and on canvas as well as on journals, greeting cards, weekender bags, shower curtains, puzzles and much more. Shop Here Thanks for your support! Sandra Gould Ford NOTE: size and placement of the art and words]can be changed as well as background colors.
Time: Important and Urgent
As Amtrak’s Capitol Limited approached Connellsville, Pennsylvania, the rows of black holes in wilderness covered with thick, fresh-fallen snow registered at the edge of my vision. While breakfasting in the dining car, I stared through the window and gasped, “Beehive Coke Ovens!” The snow revealed what leaves and earth normally hid. I’d wanted to find those abandoned parts of my region’s iron and steelmaking heritage for years. Most beehives stopped filling the skies with flames and soot in the 1950s. The last went dark twenty years later. If not destroyed, their fronts were removed to keep the homeless from sheltering inside. Years later, I searched Fayette County’s back-country roads for the railroad tracks. As the sun sank and shadows lengthened, I stopped at a forest café. The bartender called a friend who hunted those woods. After several wrong turns, a man fixing wrecked cars told me of nearby beehives, deep in briars. I was a lone woman in a wilderness as daylight dimmed. Should I turn back? Words from The Seven Spiritual Habits of Success came to mind: Important has to do with results. If something is important, it contributes to your mission, your values, your high priority goals. But if we don’t have a clear idea of what is important, of the results we desire in our lives, we are easily diverted into responding to the urgent. Though I am drawn to man-made structures with stories soaked into their crumbling bricks, rotting wood and rusting metal, getting out of those woods before nightfall was urgent. Finding those beehive coke ovens when I might not return before the tree roots crumbled and the earth absorbed them, when I might not luck into someone who knew where they were was important. Joy! The featured image may not look like much, but finding them meant a lot. A victory. NOTE: The actual ovens were domes that suggest beehives, but were encased in square structures. A short film showing beehive coke oven operations [See Other Formats. Choose Windows Media (broadband)] History of beehive coke ovens Visit a beehive coke oven Shop the Inspiring, Beautiful Succeed and Soar Collections Click Here
Discovery
Your heart is the size of the ocean. Go find yourself in its hidden depths. – Rumi In 2010, I flew across the Rocky Mountains from Denver to Grand Junction, Colorado. There, I planned a speedy, one-week loop to Utah’s Bryce Canyon and back in time to catch the Amtrak home. But astonishing, sometimes otherworldly, landscapes kept stopping me. My rushed agenda could not fit in a world where rock whittled by wind, land removed by river and terrain broken by earthquakes kept stopping me, kept making me wonder: What were these places like before their surfaces were scraped and reshaped? What new forms will one day be discovered within the now-hidden depths? Here’s a bit of what The Monument taught about forces that create new structures and reveal deeper possibilities. This vast place is also called, “The Heart of The World,” which was once the bottom of an ocean. The sign says: The Great Fault The great valley in front of you was not always so low. Nor was the plateau behind you so high. Forces in the earth’s crust made them move to these positions, dividing the valley from the plateau along a huge crack. The fault runs right through here, extending far into the distance both to your left and to your right. In some places the displacement of the fault caused the land to break apart [left]. In other places the surface layers folded or bent without breaking [right]. If you find it difficult to see the fault it is because it is an irregular zone of slippage, not a sharp, clean line. Also, erosion and the roadcut have obscured some of the outlines of the fault. Notice the rock layers behind you – they have a very gentle dip, while those in front are nearly vertical. The Beehive Coke Ovens Because of my fascination with beehive coke ovens from nineteenth and twentieth-century iron and steel manufacturing, I had to find these monoliths. Here they are! The Red Canyon Another fascinating discovery was the canyon within a canyon. The accompanying sign says: Red Canyon is really two canyons. Most obvious is the broad U-shaped canyon with tall sandstone wall. But notice the smaller V-shaped cut in the middle of the canyon floor. Water has begun to carve into the hard metamorphic bedrock, but this old, pressure-treated and tempered rock wears away much more slowly than the fragile sedimentary canyon walls. By the time the small canyon reaches the depth of the larger one, all of the sedimentary layers above it will probably be gone. The little canyon is the V-shaped indentation at this photo’s top center. This tiny one will outlast the giant canyon surrounding it. BTW: Have you ever thought of flying strong and high as an eagle? Here are fascinating “Chipper” facts about these mighty birds. The Wanderings & Wonders Collection Shop Enriching, Uplifting and Beautiful Art Click Here
The Rescue Airboat
And now let us welcome the new year, full of things that never were. –Rainer Maria Rilke In German, the ancient knot is called, palstek. In Kiswahili, the word is mstari wa matumbo. Polish call the loop that holds a sail, bulina. The English, Spanish, Finnish and French call that rope a bowline. In February, 2007, frigid winds blasted over the ice fields that buried the Allegheny River. As I hiked across Pittsburgh’s Seventh Street Bridge, a loud and fierce roar from below frightened me. Then a tiny boat zipped from the shadows and zoomed toward the Ohio that feeds the Mississippi, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico then the Atlantic Ocean and around the world. Robert Krebs of City of Pittsburgh River Rescue told me what I saw was the River Rescue airboat. He said that it comes out in winter to rescue people by riding on top of the ice. Sailing above the ice. No bowlines. Marvelous! As a new year begins and ‘things that never were’ await, the photograph I snapped of the flying boat reminds me of Mark Twain’s words, Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. SkyScapes CollectionThrow Pillows Decorate in beautiful style. Relax in lovely comfort. Details: Fabric: 100% spun polyester poplin Reversible, same image printed on both sides A concealed zipper Choice of over 70 background colors Removable insert can be requested Pillow sizes: 14×14, 16×16, 18×18, 20×20, 26×26 and 20×14 See All Throw Pillows Thanks for shopping!
Happy New Year & Delicious Dishes
We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are. Adelle Davis Click for 30-second Happy New Year greeting. Thank goodness winter starts with bright holidays. Best of all, Hanukkah, Christmas, Yule and Kwanzaa all include great food gatherings. Here are some delicious ways to fortify the body, mind and spirit for 2020’s adventures. Super-Easy Hanukkah Classics Holiday Salads Special Kwanzaa Recipes New Years Treats Blessings and best wishes for a joyful and tasty start to the new year. Eat well. Be Well. In heart and mind, body and spirit, succeed and soar. Photo: Kwanzaa Quinoa Peanut Soup The Wisdoms Collection Shop Enriching and Beautiful Posters Click Here to Visit
Solstice
Face the Sun, and all your shadows fall behind you. – African Proverb A meditation When hydrogen atoms become helium deep inside the sun, gamma ray photons erupt releasing light and heat. After a 40,000-year journey to the surface, sunbeams are launched. Earth intercepts one in every half billion. On December 21st, the space between this planet and its closest star is ninety-one and a half million miles (147 million kilometers). The distance shortens in the planet’s northern hemisphere as it again tilts toward the sun. Solstice. Winter and a celestial new year begin. Before kindergarten, I knew a sunbeam took eight minutes and 20 seconds to reach Earth because of a cereal commercial about raisins. My family lived on Delmont Avenue in Pittsburgh’s Beltzhoover neighborhood. Across the brick lane, McKinley Park was filled with trees. Buttercups grew along the walk. I had a puppy and a tricycle that my mother painted with polka dots and wove ribbons through the big, front wheel. Back then, I believed I could run fast enough to keep up with the sun as it slow-poked across the sky. I also knew not to zoom beyond our neighbor’s yard. So, maybe I’ll try outracing the sun next year. The Wisdoms Collection Shop Enriching and Beautiful Posters Click Here
Autumn Treasures
“Memories are the treasures locked deep within the storehouse of our souls; to keep our hearts warm.” — Becky Aligata A Meditation Once upon a summer, I played tag and softball and ran races with Madeira Street’s other ten-year-olds. Lunch was chipped ham and sweet pickles on Miracle Whip-slathered bread chased with Tropical Punch or Pink Lemonade or Cherry Kool-Aid. We played Tic-tac-toe, hangman and checkers on porches and watched television cartoons until dinner. At sundown, the ice cream truck’s jingle promised sparkling shaved ice drenched with pineapple or watermelon, strawberry or grape syrups. Now sometimes as leaves fall at eventide, I think of playmates running under streetlights, calling through the twilight. “There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place, where colors are brighter, the air is softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.” Elizabeth Lawrence The Wisdoms Collection Shop Enriching and Beautiful Posters Click Here
Seven Intentions
Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it. Begin it now. —Goethe A Meditation: In 1970, Tom and Kate Chappell started their toothpaste and mouthwash company with $5,000. Their goal: produce non-toxic soaps, deodorants and other personal care products without hurting or using animals [except beeswax]. Thirty-six years later, they sold 84% of Tom’s of Maine for $100,000,000. In Managing Upside Down, Tom Chappell explained his seven intentions: Connect to goodness Find the special quality that you alone can gift the world Match talent to something the world needs Associate with those who care about you and what you’re doing Discover yourself through your creations Allow change, adjust, improve Share what’s been learned with younger generations Good intentions can pave the road to … good things. The Wisdoms Collection Shop Enriching and Beautiful Posters Click Here
Circles Guaranteed
Think of the wonderful circles in which our whole being moves and from which we cannot escape no matter how we try. E. T. A. Hoffmann The Nutcracker ballet is based on an E.T.A. Hoffman short story. A Meditation: The Moon travels 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) each hour as it circles Earth. During this hour, Earth zooms forward 66,000 miles (106,217 kilometers) as it circles the Sun. Meanwhile, the Sun hauls its planets, asteroids, comets, etc. 558,000 miles [898,013 kilometers] farther around the Milky Way. Because this orbit takes a quarter billion years, the Sun has had just twenty birthdays. With all of this celestial circling, the universe keeps returning to starting points again and again. The Wisdoms Collection Shop Enriching and Beautiful Posters Click Here