"What would it be like if I could accept life—accept this moment—exactly as it is?
- Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach
- Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach
Sunday 22 December 2013
The Writer.
In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.
I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.
Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.
But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which
The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.
I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;
How we stole in, lifted a sash
And retreated, not to affright it;
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,
We watched the sleek, wild, dark
And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove
To the hard floor, or the desk-top,
And wait then, humped and bloody,
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits
Rose when, suddenly sure,
It lifted off from a chair-back,
Beating a smooth course for the right window
And clearing the sill of the world.
It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish
What I wished you before, but harder.
Richard Wilbur
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.
I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.
Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.
But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which
The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.
I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;
How we stole in, lifted a sash
And retreated, not to affright it;
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,
We watched the sleek, wild, dark
And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove
To the hard floor, or the desk-top,
And wait then, humped and bloody,
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits
Rose when, suddenly sure,
It lifted off from a chair-back,
Beating a smooth course for the right window
And clearing the sill of the world.
It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish
What I wished you before, but harder.
Richard Wilbur
Friday 29 November 2013
Thursday 7 November 2013
"I am in no hurry to comprehend myself (Enough! I shall always comprehend myself). If such and such a sentence of mine causes me a momentary disappointment, I trust in the next sentence to right its wrongs, I refrain from beginning it over again or polishing it."
- First Manifesto of Surrealism, Andre Breton
- First Manifesto of Surrealism, Andre Breton
Tuesday 5 November 2013
Monday 4 November 2013
“Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. there is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.”
- Henry Miller
Monday 28 October 2013
Memorable Quotes of the Weekend.
"If I could leave you with one practice, cultivate self-love, because it shifts us from being somebody, to being nobody, to being everybody."
"Be cool, work with the chaos, and ultimately develop a vagabond spirit."
"...suggestions that consciousness is not local to the brain."
"Western medication treats the symptoms. Entheogenic medication treats the root cause."
"The African mind doesn't distinguish between what you may call the natural and the supernatural. What you experience is real, there's no such thing as an hallucination."
"God is balance."
"Be cool, work with the chaos, and ultimately develop a vagabond spirit."
"...suggestions that consciousness is not local to the brain."
"Western medication treats the symptoms. Entheogenic medication treats the root cause."
"The African mind doesn't distinguish between what you may call the natural and the supernatural. What you experience is real, there's no such thing as an hallucination."
"God is balance."
Thursday 17 October 2013
Sunday 6 October 2013
Grown Ocean.
In that dream I'm as old as the mountains
Still is starlight reflected in fountains
Children grown on the edge of the ocean
Kept like jewelry, kept with devotion
In that dream moving slow through the morning
You would come to me then without answers
Lick my wounds and remove my demands for now
Eucalyptus and orange trees are blooming
In that dream there's no darkness a-looming
In that dream moving slow through the morning time
In that dream I could hardly contain it
All my life I will wait to attain it
There, there, there
I know someday the smoke will all burn off
All these voices I'll someday have turned off
I will see you someday when I've woken
I'll be so happy just to have spoken
I'll have so much to tell you about it
In that dream I could hardly contain it
All my life I will wait to attain it
There, there, there
Wide-eyed walker, don't betray me
I will wake one day, don't delay me
Wide-eyed leaver, always going
Fleet Foxes / Robin Noel Pecknold
Saturday 28 September 2013
Saturday 21 September 2013
Thursday 29 August 2013
"I hope I will be given time. Sometimes when I think of death, I think merely that it would be too bad, for I have not yet yielded up all the treasures I have collected. The chemistry I am producing of turning experience into awareness is not yet finished."
- The Journals of Anaïs Nin, Volume 5, Anaïs Nin
Sunday 25 August 2013
Restlessness is no offense to the loved one except that the loved one considers it a matter of personal pride. He feels he should be the Sea, the Mountain, the Exotic Islands, the Religion, the Food, the Stimulant, the Inspiration, the Provider, the Total Universe to his love. Actually restlessness, you could explain to your love, is an outcome of being in love. Having the love one wants, one wants to roam, taste, enjoy, discover, explore. It is an extension and continuation of the love. Love is at the roots. We choose our jailers. Thou shalt be my safety brakes, my hand brake, my foot brake, my automatic brake, my Brake. Some of these brakes are very attractive to touch and to hold. Otherwise you would fall in love with wilder and looser characters. Nurture your restlessness. It is a compass pointing to mirages.
Quotation from unknown source:
"The adventurer is within us, and he contests for our favour with the social man we are obliged to be. These two sorts of life are incompatible; one we hanker for, the other we are obliged to. There is no other conflict so bitter as this, whatever the pious say, for it derives from the very constitution of human life which so painfully separates us from all other human beings. We, like the eagle, were born to be free. Yet we are obliged, in order to live at all, to make a cage of laws for ourselves and to stand on the perch. We are born as wasteful, and unremorseful as tigers; we are obliged to be thrifty, or starve, or freeze. We are born to wander, and cursed to stay and dig. We are born adventurers. It is this double-mindedness of humanity that prevents a clear social excommunication of the adventurers. If he fails he is a mere criminal. One third of all criminals are nothing but failed adventurers. Society's benefactors as well as pests. These are men betrayed by contradictions inside themselves, a social man at war with a free man."
- Letter to Jim Herlihy, Anaïs Nin
Quotation from unknown source:
"The adventurer is within us, and he contests for our favour with the social man we are obliged to be. These two sorts of life are incompatible; one we hanker for, the other we are obliged to. There is no other conflict so bitter as this, whatever the pious say, for it derives from the very constitution of human life which so painfully separates us from all other human beings. We, like the eagle, were born to be free. Yet we are obliged, in order to live at all, to make a cage of laws for ourselves and to stand on the perch. We are born as wasteful, and unremorseful as tigers; we are obliged to be thrifty, or starve, or freeze. We are born to wander, and cursed to stay and dig. We are born adventurers. It is this double-mindedness of humanity that prevents a clear social excommunication of the adventurers. If he fails he is a mere criminal. One third of all criminals are nothing but failed adventurers. Society's benefactors as well as pests. These are men betrayed by contradictions inside themselves, a social man at war with a free man."
- Letter to Jim Herlihy, Anaïs Nin
Thursday 4 July 2013
Friday 28 June 2013
Sunday 23 June 2013
A Poem About Baseballs.
for years the scenes bustled
through him as he dreamed he was
alive. then he felt real, and slammed
awake in the wet sheets screaming
too fast, everything moves
too fast, and the edges of things
are gone. four blocks away
a baseball was a dot against
the sky, and he thought, my
glove is too big, i will
drop the ball and it will be
a home run. the snow falls
too fast from the clouds,
and night is dropped and
snatched back like a huge
joke. is that the ball, or is
it just a bird, and the ball is
somewhere else, and i will
miss it? and the edges are gone, my
hands melt into the walls, my
hands do not end where the wall
begins. should i move
forward, or back, or will the ball
come right to me? i know i will
miss, because i always miss when it
takes so long. the wall has no
surface, no edge, the wall
fades into the air and the air is
my hand, and i am the wall. my
arm is the syringe and thus i
become the nurse, i am you,
nurse. if he gets
around the bases before the
ball comes down, is it a home
run, even if i catch it? if we could
slow down, and stop, we
would be one fused mass careening
at too great a speed through
the emptiness. if i catch
the ball, our side will
be up, and i will have to bat,
and i might strike out.
Denis Johnson
through him as he dreamed he was
alive. then he felt real, and slammed
awake in the wet sheets screaming
too fast, everything moves
too fast, and the edges of things
are gone. four blocks away
a baseball was a dot against
the sky, and he thought, my
glove is too big, i will
drop the ball and it will be
a home run. the snow falls
too fast from the clouds,
and night is dropped and
snatched back like a huge
joke. is that the ball, or is
it just a bird, and the ball is
somewhere else, and i will
miss it? and the edges are gone, my
hands melt into the walls, my
hands do not end where the wall
begins. should i move
forward, or back, or will the ball
come right to me? i know i will
miss, because i always miss when it
takes so long. the wall has no
surface, no edge, the wall
fades into the air and the air is
my hand, and i am the wall. my
arm is the syringe and thus i
become the nurse, i am you,
nurse. if he gets
around the bases before the
ball comes down, is it a home
run, even if i catch it? if we could
slow down, and stop, we
would be one fused mass careening
at too great a speed through
the emptiness. if i catch
the ball, our side will
be up, and i will have to bat,
and i might strike out.
Denis Johnson
Wednesday 19 June 2013
Love Song.
If I could write words
Like leaves on an Autumn Forest floor
What a bonfire my letters would make.
If I could speak words of water
You would drown when I said
'I love you'.
Spike Milligan
Like leaves on an Autumn Forest floor
What a bonfire my letters would make.
If I could speak words of water
You would drown when I said
'I love you'.
Spike Milligan
Friday 26 April 2013
The Arrival.
For years on end I have been sitting here,
impatiently awaiting potency: some explosive revelatory surge
that will carry me away and permit no looking back.
But this moment of deliverance has not arrived,
and I have done nothing to hasten it.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter.
Perhaps I wasn’t meant to do anything.
In which case, I have succeeded admirably.
John Tottenham
impatiently awaiting potency: some explosive revelatory surge
that will carry me away and permit no looking back.
But this moment of deliverance has not arrived,
and I have done nothing to hasten it.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter.
Perhaps I wasn’t meant to do anything.
In which case, I have succeeded admirably.
John Tottenham
Thursday 18 April 2013
Looking out the Window.
The sounds of traffic
die over the back lawn
to occur again in the low
distance.
The voices, risen, of
the neighborhood cannot
maintain that pitch
and fail briefly, start
up again.
Similarly my breathing rises
and falls while I look out
the window of apartment
number three in this slum,
hoping for rage, or sorrow.
They don’t come to me
anymore. How can I lament
anything? It is all
so proper, so much
as it should be, now
the nearing cumulus
clouds, ominous,
shift, they are like the
curtains, billowy,
veering at the apex
of their intrusion on the room.
If I am alive now,
it is only
to be in all this
making all possible.
I am glad to be
finally a part
of such machinery. I was
after all not so fond
of living, and there comes
into me, when I see
how little I liked
being a man, a great joy.
Look out our astounding
clear windows before evening.
It is almost as if
the world were blue
with some lubricant,
it shines so.
die over the back lawn
to occur again in the low
distance.
The voices, risen, of
the neighborhood cannot
maintain that pitch
and fail briefly, start
up again.
Similarly my breathing rises
and falls while I look out
the window of apartment
number three in this slum,
hoping for rage, or sorrow.
They don’t come to me
anymore. How can I lament
anything? It is all
so proper, so much
as it should be, now
the nearing cumulus
clouds, ominous,
shift, they are like the
curtains, billowy,
veering at the apex
of their intrusion on the room.
If I am alive now,
it is only
to be in all this
making all possible.
I am glad to be
finally a part
of such machinery. I was
after all not so fond
of living, and there comes
into me, when I see
how little I liked
being a man, a great joy.
Look out our astounding
clear windows before evening.
It is almost as if
the world were blue
with some lubricant,
it shines so.
Denis Johnson
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