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Lee's Surrender overshot blanket, ready to weave. This felt good!
I assume that this weaving pattern came from sometime around the Civil War, given the name. I can't wait to actually have it finished!
"Unconditional Surrender", a 25-foot statue created by renowned artist J. Seward Johnson, was temporarily taken down from its location along the bayfront in Sarasota, FL so that it can undergo maintenance in New Jersey. Crews had a tough time dismantling it. They used a blow torch, wrenches, and a sledge hammer but the bolts wouldn't budge.
Appomattox Court House / Formal Surrender Ceremony / Union Line at Court House / Confederate Force at Attention / Stars and Bars Raised # 3
The word 'surrender' has bad connotations in our culture. It's equated with defeat, weakness and failure. So much so that we probably need a whole other word for 'surrender' as it's meant in the context of spirituality. This form of surrender has nothing to do with defeat and failure and is actually more synonymous with strength than weakness. It takes a lot of strength and wisdom to know when and how to surrender to life.
Eckhart Tolle defined this form of surrender as simply "yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life." The Tao te Ching is an extended meditation on the art of surrendering to the flow of life. It draws our attention to the inherent perfection of nature, which is driven by an inner force, an underlying principle of balance and harmony. The sun and the wind and rain just do their thing. Animals exist, just doing their thing. In spite of the seeming chaos and violence we might observe in the natural world when viewing its constituent parts and their interaction, when the whole is taken into consideration, we see it is all driven by balance and perfection. Whenever it resists and constricts, something usually happens to bring it back into balance again.
Surrender is acknowledging that there's a deeper flow, a deeper reality beneath the myriad forms of this world which have hitherto absorbed and imprisoned our attention. It's only when we let go of our need to control everything and recognise that our reign as supreme dictator of our lives has caused more pain than gain, that we can begin to form a deeper connection with life.
Contrary to everything we may have been taught, accepting and yielding to the flow of life gives us infinitely more power than trying to control and manipulate every aspect of it. The latter wears us out, grinds us down, tending to make us bitter and disillusioned. The former makes us as fresh and innocent as a young child; we regain some of our wonder at the miraculous gift of life. We connect with a far deeper power and come to experience a profound joy at simply being alive and open to life as it unfolds.
It's also possible that when we approach life from an attitude of surrender and acceptance that situations become more harmonious, because we're no longer creating tension and constriction by trying to control everything. Letting go of our stranglehold on life frees up a whole lot of energy that was otherwise being wasted. Perhaps if we are a little friendlier and kinder to life, life will return the favour? Why not surrender to the flow of life and just see what happens...
… the season had begun to tighten like a gray noose around the landscape, and for a month I seemed to move beneath a canopy of brooding cloud. Only in the afternoons would the skies sometimes clear and release long pale drapes of yellow light, calling forth across the ever-barer hills an answering shade from the surrendering foliage; …
Quoted from:
Mirrors of the Unseen – Journeys in Iran
Jason Elliot, England
At the moment of surrender
I folded to my knees
I did not notice the passers by
And they did not notice me
Lyrics by U2: from The moment of surrender.
2009, from No Line On The Horizon
Photograph of four men in uniform with their arms around each other, standing in front of a sign that reads: “JAPAN SURRENDERS. WAR ENDS.” There is a fence and tent in the background.
From Jesse L. Taylor and Joney E. Taylor Military Papers, WWII 278, World War II Papers, Military Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C.
My illustration depicts Australia's most notorious bushranger Ned Kelly. I wanted to make sure it wasn't just about his own surrender to the police, but the many people who surrendered their lives to Kelly and his gang.
National Museum of the US Air Force
Leaflets dropped by Air Force aircraft communicated many different themes. One type of leaflet was a warning against UN air attack. The ones meant for civilians directed them to stay away from unexploded ordnance, or roads, railways and other military targets. The ones aimed toward soldiers tried to instill fear by warning that the only escape from the "Flying Tigers of the Free World" was to surrender. Another main type of leaflet portrayed the people of North Korea as pawns of the Korean, Chinese and Soviet Communists. These leaflets blamed Kim Il Sung, Mao Zedong and Josef Stalin for lying to the Korean people and prolonging the war.