Japanese Snow Monkeys: Focus - Human Primates' Wont, Cultural Flourishings & Creation of Great Art, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day

The weather is warm today & people here near the redwoods in Canyon, and the San Francisco Bay Area, are focused, as human primates are wont to do - some on the relaxationresponse.org.

It's interesting to me that we primates focus a lot, but don't often think of life this way. And our actions are often symbolically informed especially vis-a-vis reason.


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Ancient Greece, the Italian Renaissance, the French Revolution, the American Revolution, New England Transcendentalism {e.g. in a way, Thoreau, Dickinson, Whitman}, and the revolutions of the 1960s & counterculture, as well as the internet revolution, (the 'revolution' meme has been compelling to humans} have all brought about profound changes, and great ones, for people, as well as great writings and art. They all involved also certain kinds of focusing. Each of these times has created a milieu for people which has been transformatory, often against any established order, and for the better of people (e.g. democracy, philosophy, mathematics, - everything in ancient Greece). And each represents a kind of cultural flourishing.


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Friend {and to Harbin?}:

Here's a favorite poem of mine by Shakespeare - (Sonnet 18):




Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day?

by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)


Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.









(http://www.fleurdelis.com/shallIcomparethee.htm)







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Macaca fuscata

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Macaque


Wonderful photos of Snow Monkeys in warm pools:


images.google.com/images?q=japanese%20snow%20monkey&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi



Japanese Snow Monkeys
Japanese Macaque






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To Harbin & the relaxation response in the pools :)






(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/12/japanese-snow-monkeys-focus-human.html - December 1, 2009)