Tag Archives: sky

Dale

Dale (n) a broad valley

I was never quite sure what was meant by the phrase, “Over hill and dale.”

I always thought it was pretty clever, in that old Army song, that we were going to “hit the dusty trail.”

“Dale” was one of those words I replaced in my mind—like inserting a space-filler.

In other words, it wasn’t important enough to look up, so I pretended I knew what it meant and moved on along, since it wasn’t that valuable to me.

Also, I’m not quite sure how the dale—or the valley—ever got such a bad reputation.

What do they say of a dale?

  • A down time.
  • A less-than-prosperous situation.
  • Or even an unfortunate defeat.

How did this happen? After all, when you climb a hill, you have two choices of what to look at. The sky or back down at the beautiful, green, grassy dale.

There’s something in our minds that tells us we have to be at the peak, instead of considering the dale to be our actual residence of achievement.

Doggone it, sweet people, let me tell you: Not all of us are able or prepared to live on top of the hill.

It is in the valley where the waters flow.

It is in the dale that the crops grow.

It is in this tucked-away, secure place that I can certainly find my own peace of mind, without insisting that I need to live high among the birds.

Aquarius

dictionary with letter A

Aquarius (n): the eleventh sign of the Zodiac.

“This is the dawning of the …”

The next part of this lyric from the song in Hair is “…Age of Aquarius.”

I happen to really enjoy that production and the tune, even though I grew up in a religious environment which believed that all astrology was “of the devil.”

Yes. Leave it to Satan to come up with a practice where everything is left to chance and the moving of the stars.

So as a kid, it was difficult to sing the song, share the song or even refer to the song around grownups. They would warn me that I was welcoming in dark demons, which would later infest me with horrible attitudes like failing to pay my electric bill.

It was difficult–because truth is much like water. It tends to come from everywhere and surprise us with how similar it is, considering its divergent points of origin.

Some water comes from the mountains through melted snow.

Some from the sky.

Some from wells from deep within the earth.

But pour it in a cup, drink it down and it’s refreshing.

I have to be honest with you–the off-Broadway musical, Hair, did more to enlighten me, generate social consciousness and make me compassionate than any sermon I ever heard in church.

It was raw, a little silly and laced with too much hopefulness.

But without that kind of childlike faith, we all become cynical growling adults. And deep in my heart, I wish there was an Age of Aquarius. I dream of how wonderful it would be if the stars would shift, Jupiter would align with Mars and attitudes would improve.

But I think I’m stuck with the symbolism–or maybe I’m Jupiter and my brother is Mars and the truth of life is still stuck in the closet somewhere … of the seventh house.

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