Kathleen O’Neill, MA (Hons), MSc, MPhil, and now VIB

What means VIB, I hear you ask? I got a lovely, and most unexpected, tweet two days ago from Kat at I Saw You Dancing (the brains behind December’s #reverb12). She nominated me as a Very Inspirational Blogger! I blush. I stutter. I beam.

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Ring out, wild bells – how to use my New Year’s resolutions to the best possible effect

Dragonfly emerging from its chrysalis (via Dreamstime Stock Images)

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, ‘Ring out, wild bells’ (part of In Memoriam), 1850.

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Out with the old year and in with the new year – Reverb12 Day 31: Love to you, wherever you are

Old and New Year. Cover-Table Calendar for 1905 – Konstantin Somov

#Reverb12 Day 31 – the final day – asks us to

Take a moment to yourself, somewhere quiet.

Take a deep breath, and if you have the time/space/inclination do something that has significance for you e.g. light a candle, brew a put of your favourite tea, play your favourite music, whatever.

I’m in a house full of some of my favourite children who currently watching cartoons, but who occastionally need books read, computer games played, and lavish attention. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s a great end to one year, and a wonderful start to the next. Because I have only a small amount of time which I want to myself to finish Reverb12, I will answer Kat’s five questions before getting back to the party.

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I can only choose *one* word?! – Reverb12 Day 29: Have you heard your word?

A final Merry Christmas to all! I hope that you had a lovely time with family and friends, and that you’re looking forward to Hogmanay and the New Year. I decided to fully embrace the #Reverb12 spirit and take a few days off from the phone and the computer to focus on family, friends, and food – all the important parts of Christmas and of life. It’s been great, and I’ve missed being online and on the phone much less than I thought I would, so I think that I will be repeating that exercise every so often. I also think I need to get a Nintendo Wii as soon as possible.

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2013: the year in which I stop getting old and start learning to speak – Reverb12 Day 23

From Tennyson’s ‘In Memoriam’ – Henry Vitzelly, in “Christmas with the Poets” recommends the poem as the most appropriate way to end the year (Glasgow University Library Special Collections item Sp Coll Euing BD20-b.24).

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My material culture: Reverb12 Day 22 – Your most important gift

Christmas stockings – ‘The Night Before Christmas’

For a change of pace, I’m going to look at tangible presents from this year and for the year to come, in response to today’s yesterday’s prompt. Christmas is a time of giving presents to those you love (yes, ‘duh’, and yes, ‘inexcusably cheesy’), and it’s always nice to show as much appreciation as possible for those presents that you receive. Besides, if you accept Bernie Herman’s definition of material culture as “the histories and philosophy of objects – all of them, tangible and imagined”, then don’t the gifts we receive and the gifts we would like to receive say a lot about who we are? As an example, here is a list of three gifts, in no particular order, that I would like to receive in 2013, or at some point in my life:

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Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three – Reverb12 Day 20

Engraving by F. O. C. Darley (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Today, #Reverb12 evokes one of my favourite fairytales, Aladdin, by asking us to make three wishes for next year. The first two were easy, while the third took some time, but I present them here for your delight and delectation:

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