"...Because I was afraid. You forget I am only a magician, whose conjuring raises nothing more formidable than devils. But this is a bit of the Old Magic that is no longer understood, and I prefer not to meddle with it. You, to the contrary, are a poet, and the Old Magic was always favourable to poets."

-James Branch Cabell

near to the window my hands turn colder
and after a time
they scream for this sensation like a moth to the flame

it is a familiar feeling in the colder months
yet now, as always at the start of it all
I feel beckoned, almost challenged
by the night wind through autumn's black window

as in a dream I open my door,
and the secrets whisper all the louder
and the layers unfold again
down the raw streets scratched across with leaves
the incense of the air
swaying with the boughs in cold embrace

all is beautifully stark
somehow clear in its mystery
and inwardly warm
in all its terrible majesty

"As they stared blankly in dumb misery deepening as they slowly realised all they had seen and all they had lost, a capricious little breeze, dancing up from the surface of the water, tossed the aspens, shook the dewy roses and blew lightly and caressingly in their faces; and with its soft touch came instant oblivion. For this is the last best gift that the kindly demi-god is careful to bestow on those to whom he has revealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness. Lest the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and pleasure, and the great haunting memory should spoil all the after-lives of little animals helped out of difficulties, in order that they should be happy and lighthearted as before."

-----------

"It's lucky we've got the stream with us, to take us home. Isn't it jolly to feel the sun again, soaking into one's bones! And hark to the wind playing in the reeds!'

'It's like music--far away music,' said the Mole nodding drowsily.

'So I was thinking,' murmured the Rat, dreamful and languid. 'Dance-music--the lilting sort that runs on without a stop--but with words in it, too--it passes into words and out of them again--I catch them at intervals--then it is dance-music once more, and then nothing but the reeds' soft thin whispering.'

'You hear better than I,' said the Mole sadly. 'I cannot catch the words.'

'Let me try and give you them,' said the Rat softly, his eyes still closed. 'Now it is turning into words again--faint but clear--Lest the awe should dwell--And turn your frolic to fret--You shall look on my power at the helping hour--But then you shall forget! Now the reeds take it up--forget, forget, they sigh, and it dies away in a rustle and a whisper. Then the voice returns--

'Lest limbs be reddened and rent--I spring the trap that is set--As I loose the snare you may glimpse me there--For surely you shall forget! Row nearer, Mole, nearer to the reeds! It is hard to catch, and grows each minute fainter.

'Helper and healer, I cheer--Small waifs in the woodland wet--Strays I find in it, wounds I bind in it--Bidding them all forget! Nearer, Mole, nearer! No, it is no good; the song has died away into reed-talk.'

'But what do the words mean?' asked the wondering Mole.

'That I do not know,' said the Rat simply. 'I passed them on to you as they reached me. Ah! now they return again, and this time full and clear! This time, at last, it is the real, the unmistakable thing, simple--passionate--perfect----'

'Well, let's have it, then,' said the Mole, after he had waited patiently for a few minutes, half-dozing in the hot sun.

But no answer came. He looked, and understood the silence. With a smile of much happiness on his face, and something of a listening look still lingering there, the weary Rat was fast asleep."

-Kenneth Grahame, from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, a chapter of The Wind in the Willows

"This triteness is really the penalty of 'appropriation': the things that are trite, or (in a bad sense) familiar, are the things that we have appropriated, legally or mentally. We say we know them. They have become like the things which once attracted us by their glitter, or their colour, or their shape, and we laid hands on them, and then locked them in our hoard, acquired them, and acquiring ceased to look at them."

-Tolkien

"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."

Anais Nin

"My cosmic schmuck principle holds that, if you occasionally notice that you've been thinking or acting like a cosmic schmuck, you''ll become less of a cosmic schmuck. And the more often you notice that you're thinking and acting like a cosmic schmuck, the less of a cosmic schmuck you become. On the other hand if you never, never, never suspect that you might be thinking or acting like a cosmic schmuck, you will remain a cosmic schmuck for the rest of your life."

-Robert Anton Wilson

"Writing poetry consists in letting the word be heard behind words"

-Gerhart Hauptmann

"But the cult of the self, which is really at the engine of consumer society and which now dominates our culture...is very differnt...it is about a kind of breakage of community...and of course this is what consumer society is about - it's about creating anxieties and fears quite consciously...this cult at its core has many of the traits of psychopaths. It's about superficial charm, it's about grandiosity, self-importance, a need for constant stimulation, a penchant for lying, deception, and manipulation, and an incapacity for remorse or guilt. It's about presentation, not about integrity. It's about image. And this is exceedingly dangerous."

-Chris Hedges

"The blind was down; but outside the moon rose up out of the sea, and laid the silver path across the waters that is the way to places at the edge of the world and beyond, for those that can walk on it."

-Tolkien

"...when we begin to practice and to learn more, we may think we should be adding tricks or embellishments of all kinds to our practice. This is the approach of spiritual materialism. It seems fascinating and efficient to use more gadgets to run our domestic scene, office scene, spiritual scene or whatever scenes we may have. American society already has enough gadgets, but we want more.

In the long run, that approach is wasteful and creates further chaos. Spiritual discipline is not about advancement, but it is a question of undoing what we have created already. We are not talking about extending ourselves to become greater or more professional meditators, we are talking about meditation as unlearning.

We should be aware that spiritual materialism creates garbage. Some of the mental tricks associated with spirituality are so fantastic and outlandish that one wonders who dreamed up such things. One might feel dwarfed by such seemingly impressive wisdom. We purchase this stuff. We pile up one cardboard box of spiritual stuff after another. We bring it home and take it out of the cardboard box it came in, and then we find that our garage is completely filled with boxes after boxes with labels on them. A lot of these complicated techniques are just garbage that is being imposed on us. They have nothing to do with unlearning, undoing, or simplifying at all.

We have all made these kinds of collections. In fact, without them, we couldn’t come to the spiritual path. Some people like to collect junk, some like to collect antiques, some like to collect stamps. You have your own style of collecting. Some of these collections may be worthwhile. In the practice of meditation, you are surrendering the collections you have made, and that process could be genuine and beautiful. On the other hand, sometimes we are aggressive about holding onto our collections-we want to get something out of them."

-Chogyam Trungpa

"Those who are enlightened never stop forging themselves. The realizations of such masters cannot be expressed well in words or by theories. The most perfect actions echo the patterns found in nature."

-Morihei Ueshiba

"All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgement old
Your answer had not been inscroll'd
Fare you well, your suit is cold."

-Shakespeare

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

-Tolkien

it is summer, and the city tears at me
I breathe in dirt and suffocate
I think of a time years ago
of candy eyes
red lips and silver words
and there are no words I can remember now
among the slogans and empty phrases
the hollow eyes and snakeskin smiles
that seem real to me

I reach out to you
a hollow drum in a dusty basement
beating, muffled under dirty stone
as my memory fades
into dead wood along darkened streets

-------------------

in my eyes a hundred screens of static
blue with a silent terror
as my voice turns, grinds, chews
endless
over and over
silent to deafened ears

I give in
forget the past
forget my mind
and with my body clenched
my mind as water
I fall away to unknown places

I cannot do this
this is not me
I do not understand

it's SUMMERTIME

WHERE IS IT

alcoholic red
those wide eyes in black branches
that silent laughter in a silent mind
it brings me closer
towards your door

and I stay behind
I feel the silence
like slow flowers in tightened skin

and still
I came through the window looking for you
I came in dreams
and in dreams I am with you
with easy smiles
with shifting eyes
to riddle you with jeweled tongues

dripping, shining in a black mirror

According to the silence, winter has arrived-
a special kind of winter. I, its inventor,
watch it freeze in calendars and stare
out of clocks. I do not feel its cold.

Across a certain farm evening crows go flying,
intervals of sky that I have seen before,
the bearing of a river: I advance, a wanderer
out of thought country, that serious, quiet place,

Till according to the silence all the light is gone
and according to the dark all wanderers are home

-William Stafford, "Shepherd"


Across the round field under the dark male tower
drift the two horses, the chestnut and the black,
aloof and quiet as two similar clouds -

alike and distant, heads towards the wind,
and the grass a green pool under moving clouds
under the sickle gulls, the screaming grey eyed girls

Only by night around the standing tower
the stallion's white teeth in the brown mare's shoulder
those eight hooves fly like thunder in the wind,
like water falling under the night's drum

-Alex Comfort, "The Lovers"

"Unite yourself to the cosmos, and the thought of transcendence will disappear. Transcendence belongs to the profane world. When all trace of transcendence vanishes, the true person - the Divine Being - is manifest. Empty yourself and let the Divine function."

"You cannot see or touch the Divine with your gross senses. The Divine is within you, not somewhere else. Unite yourself to the Divine, and you will be able to perceive gods wherever you are, but do not try to grasp or cling to them."

"When you bow deeply to the universe, it bows back; when you call out the name of God, it echoes inside you."

-Morihei Ueshiba

shining under stars
the room wraps us up tightly
in finely textured silken waves
of bubble fuzzy carpet laughter

I catch your eyes, your smile
blue with the darkening sky
I have come from the dusk to sit with you in the night
as we shake off the day
as the world fades away
and what game will we play

you flash your eyes once more
jeweled as flowers, bloomed
like a note, a melody
of a glimmering heart in a crystal cage

and later
when we walk towards the roots and the stones
will you give yourself to the sea
will you toast the deep blue and beckoning symphony
outside of time
near the roots, and the stones

Your morning smile of torture
Holds me in its grip
You trace the taste of yesterday
The bruise upon my lip
You touch my eyes and hypnotize
And slip inside my heart
I wait for this forever
But we always fall apart

You want to hold me closer
And secretly entice
You take the size of shadowed men
And punish me with kisses every night

This espionage is sweeter now
Now that we're alone
But I meet your eyes and then despise
All we call our own
I write my name in lipstick
On the mirror as I leave
To stay would be too dangerous
To break the make-believe

You want to hold me closer
And secretly entice
You take the size of shadowed men
And punish me with kisses every night


-The Glove, "Punish me with kisses"

"The whole point is that we have grown up with a very strange relationship with society. Sometimes we like society and are trying to get into it and become a replica of everyone else. You do exactly the same thing as everyone else, and it feels good. You have a social standard to relate to and you have your M.A. or Ph.D. You are a professional person and you have a car of your own. You know how to cook food, entertain friends, you are humorous and engaging. You are even eloquent and interesting. You are a good host, a good driver, an acceptable person, a nice guy.
But at the same time, you don't want to be like that at all. Your complex about society takes all kinds of forms. Sometimes you want to be above society and bring society up to your level. You are part of an exclusive lodge or club. Only highly evolved people can work with you, deal with you. You are not like the rest of the world, not like the others. You are special, very special. You eat different food. You even drive differently, maybe. You break the law in a different way- with conscious effort. You cook meals specially, and you talk a special way; you articulate differently. You put the accent on the metaphysical or mystical, or on being zany. Society pushes people into this kind of attitude because there are so many repetitions taking place.

On the other hand, sometimes people have the feeling that they can't even make it up to the repetitious level. They feel belittled, uneducated. But then, once you've gotten to that level and you feel you are just like everybody else, you want to rise above this and do special things. You acquire special art treasures, which you show. You develop a special handicraft or a talent that you have that is out of the ordinary. The selling point in all this is that it is every special, unlike anything else, that you are a very special person, which is another kind of neurosis that goes on in society. First you try very hard to be ordinary, and then, when you achieve that, you try to rise above the ordinariness.
There are all kinds of different levels and different approaches to trying to ignore the loneliness."

-Chogyam Trungpa

"The streets were the ones that they walked along each morning and afternoon and yet quite different, for they had their own separate, breathing life that the country always has, but that towns do not by day. Even her footsteps did not seem to belong to her. The night seized and transformed them, just as it transformed the greenhouses they passed from useful places for growing things into cold night palaces."

-Penelope Farmer

white spires on foggy shores
distant as the moon
call with whispers, loud as lions

turn round and breathe deep, the heavy scent
the porcelain caress
dripping like honey in the silver gateway
of all smiles and serpents

and I dance sideways,
toward the silent and slow
the white, cracked walls
a stage upon a stage

I dance with slow knives in my heart
a mask on my face
sliding and swaying through the fog on the stage

"The practice of meditation is a way of unmasking ourselves, our deceptions of all kinds, and also the practice of meditation is a way of bringing out the subtleties of intelligence that exist within us. The experience of meditation sometimes plays the role of playmate: sometimes it plays the role of devil's advocate, fundamental depression. Sometimes it acts as an encouragement for birth, sometimes as an encouragement for death."

"We constantly produce a display, a theatrical scene. For each situation we create the appropriate backdrop and the appropriate lighting. We also have the appropriate actors, mainly ourselves, who appear on the stage. We carry on this kind of play, this theatrical game, all the time, and we are constantly using our antennae, so to speak, to feel out the total effect our stage set is having."

-Chogyam Trungpa

I lust for damp emerald dance nights
silver drift over scent of lotus
lost in the dripping jade

running down steep hills

a fire at dusk
with drums in the dark

give me silence
I can't meet your eyes with this noise
all these smiles in summer dazed nights
it could last forever
in silence, slow motion

and you seem so happy
that it frightens me, just a little

it was easy the other day, those games we played
but underneath it all
something I can't quite place
something at the windows

so give me silence
before I take your hands in mine
give me time
to breathe in the air
see the lights outside
turn away for a while

to get lost in the black alleys
and the amber streets

so that you may find me there

"According to an old story, a lord of ancient China once asked his physician, a member of a family of healers, which of them was the most skilled in the art. The physician, whose reputation was such that his name became synonymous with medical science in China, replied, "My eldest brother sees the spirit of sickness and removes it before it takes shape, so his name does not get out of the house. My elder brother cures sickness when it is still extremely minute, so his name does not get out of the neighborhood. As for me, I puncture veins, prescribe potions, and massage skin, so from time to time my name gets out and is heard among the lords."

Mr. Cat
1991 - 2009

A friend, spirit brother, and true companion. He was with me through some very hard and confusing times and it was good to have him there. I have never felt such a connection to an animal as I did with him.

I loved him so much.

I wish I could have been there with him at the end, to take his body, and place it in the Earth. Just he and I.

He will be missed deeply, and never forgotten.

the Japanese dance at the end just blows me away every time. It is so amazing.

the third story floor
the flickering light
fingers outstretched and shaking
and a body as marble

eyes as silent alarms awake
and with the certainty of wolves
glide towards the window

I am outside
listening through the wind
and watching

---------------------


drifting farther and farther through the city
under blackened skies
on and on 
we pass the grey streets with the white houses

in the car, in the backseat
I stare at the lights going by
one by one
on and on
the grey streets with the white houses


far from the streets
far from the houses
I'll call you and say nothing
voice under radio noise
staring at blue screens
and static

"In a spectacle like that of Balinese theater there is something that has nothing to do with entertainment, the notion of useless, artificial amusement, of an evening's pastime which is the characteristic of our theater. The Balinese productions take shape at the very heart of the matter, life, reality. There is in them something of the ceremonial quality of a religious rite, in the sense that they extirpate from the mind of the onlooker all idea of pretense, of cheap imitations of reality. This intricately detailed gesticulation has one goal, an immediate goal which it approaches by efficacious means, whose efficacy we are even meant to experience immediately. The thoughts it aims at, the spiritual states it seeks to create, the mystic solutions it proposes are aroused and attained without delay or circumlocution. All of which seems to be an exorcism to make our demons flow."

-Artaud

"...I believe that you believe you helped write that joke. That is how people like you work. Your ego is so out of whack that it will do whatever it can to protect itself. And people with a messed up ego can do these mental gymnastics to convince themselves they're awesome when really they're just douchebags."

-Stan

under grey clouds in april
it was warm
as you stood near

I felt as sand
falling to pieces as in a dream
crawling slowly through images unknown
I did not want to see

and I can not remember
what has become of you now
where I have gone


far away
the people sit in the windows at night
smiling at nothing in particular

oh boy

MAN
...MAN

"...Then it isn't fame. Fame exists in that sense only for the schoolmasters. No, it isn't fame. It is what I call eternity. The pious call it the kingdom of God. I say to myself: all we who ask too much and have a dimension too many could not contrive to live at all if there were not another air to breathe outside the air of this world, if there were not eternity at the back of time; and this is the kingdom of truth. The music of Mozart belongs there and the poetry of your great poets. The saints, too, belong there, who have worked wonders and suffered martyrdom and given great example to men. But the image of every true act, the strength of every true feeling, belongs to eternity just as much, even though no one knows of it or sees it or records it or hands it down to posterity. In eternity there is no posterity."

"...I think so, yes. My happiness fills me with content and I can bear it for a long while yet. But sometimes when happiness leaves for a moment's leisure to look about me and long for things, the longing I have is not to keep this happiness forever, but to suffer once again, only more beautifully and less meanly than before. I long for the sufferings that make me ready and willing to die."

-Hesse


I am in love with this book.
One of the great ones that seem to speak directly to you at exactly the right time in your life.

faces down
under the streetlights, glowing
neatly I declare with certainty
the words that keep you at my side

I ease in slowly
I love all that you say
I'm all teeth for you
all rainbows and smiles

the carnival curtains sway effortlessly
unseen, denied
and red lips, smeared and dripping
weave words in metallic 
unending and repetetive
they bury themselves deep
ease in and caress 
turn to static
as eyes wide, empty and blind
gaze from behind the stage
they don't care
don't feel

and when I finally get to you
I'm scared of all I could do


---------------

an afternoon light
dull across the wood
in grey sunday
I push myself through the door
see a familiar face in the hallway
through the corridors
upside down
I feel the colors run
across the walls

in time
the spectres laugh
behind ruby lips
and echo the ages
in mirrors of gold

eyes, sapphires
gaze down
from forgotten tombs

"deeply lost in the night. just as one sometimes lowers one's head to reflect, thus to be utterly lost in the night. all around people are asleep. it's just play acting, and innocent self-deception, that they sleep in houses, in safe beds, under a safe roof, stretched out or curled up on mattresses, in sheets, under blankets; in reality they have flocked together as they had once upon a time and again later in a deserted region, a camp in the open, a countless number of men, an army, a people, under a cold sky on cold earth, collapsed where once they had stood, forehead pressed on the arm, face to the ground, breathing quietly. and you are watching, are one of the watchmen, you find the next one by brandishing a burning stick from the brushwood pile beside you. why are you watching? someone must watch, it is said. someone must be there."

-Kafka

watch these please

THIS

AND THIS

The Upstairs Room

I love it all
These games we play
I close my eyes
You run away
I'm sure I asked you to stay
But now you're gone

And so I feel the grey
Pulse in my head
I turn off the lights and crawl into bed
I try to think of sunshine
But my body goes wet
With the first crash of thunder...

I don't think I can know
Anyone but you dear
That's for sure!

When it gets to four
It's my turn to go
Oh the kiss!
So alcoholic and slow
Arranging me for Saturday
I thought you would know
That I always sleep alone...

I don't think I can know
Anyone but you
Dear
That's for sure!

The upstairs room is cool and bright
We can go up there in summer
And dance all night...

Your sister started talking at a minute after ten
So everyone jumped up
And then fell over again
In April you can join them
And stare at me
At the ghost from your past...

-RS


here's to spring

yellow
green
blue
warm breeze
in cool rooms

"The love of this atmosphere comes, no doubt, from the days of my childhood, and a secret yearning I have for something homelike drives me, though with little hope, to follow the same old stupid road. Then again, I like the contrast between my lonely, loveless, hunted, and thoroughly disorderly existence and this middle-class family life. I like to breathe in on the stairs this odor of quiet and order, of cleanliness and respectable domesticity. There is something in it that touches me in spite of my hatred for all it stands for."

"There were now and then, though rarely, the hours that brought the welcome shock, pulled down the walls and brought me back again from my wanderings to the living heart of the world. Sadly and yet deeply moved, I set myself to recall the last of these experiences. It was at a concert of lovely old music. After two or three notes of the piano the door was opened of a sudden to the other world. I sped through heaven and saw God at work. I suffered holy pains. I dropped all my defenses and was afraid of nothing in the world. I accepted all things and to all things I gave up my heart."


-Harry Haller (Herman Hesse)

Thirty pages in and it's already one of my favorite books.

"I didn't understand that sarcasm is a screen-the last refuge of shy, pure persons against those who rudely and insistently try to break into their hearts. Until the last moment, her pride prevented her from saying exactly what she felt. I should've guessed that, if only from the timid hesitation she had to overcome to make her defensive, sarcastic remark. But I didn't understand, and a nasty feeling pervaded me.
"Wait", I said to myself, "I'll show you."

-The Underground Man (Dostoyevsky)

-Victor Ekpuk

"Before you can let things go, you have to admit them into full consciousness. In meditation, our aim is to skillfully allow the subconscious to arise in consciousness. All the despair, fears, anguish, suppression and anger is allowed to become conscious...we contemplate fear and desire so that these do not delude us anymore: we have to know what is deluding us before we can let it go."

"...in this way you are moving towards what is going on in your own body rather than being pulled out into objects of the senses. If you do not have any refuge within, then you are constantly going out, being absorbed into books, food and all sorts of distractions. But this endless movement of the mind is very exhausting."

"...this is where many of us in our society get stuck. For example, American society does not allow you to develop emotionally, to mature. It does not understand that need at all, so it does not provide any rites of passage for men. The society does not provide that kind of introduction into a mature world; you are expected to be immature your whole life. You are supposed to act mature, but you are not supposed to be mature. Therefore, very few people are. Emotions are not really understood or resolved - their childish tendencies are merely suppressed rather than developed into maturity."

"If you are someone who is always being wounded or offended by life, you always have to run off and hide or you have to find a group of obsequious sycophants to live with, people who say: 'You're wonderful, Ajahn Sumedho.' 'Am I really wonderful?' 'Yes, you are.' 'You're just saying that, aren't you?' 'No, no, I mean it from the bottom of my heart.' 'Well, that person over there doesn't think I'm wonderful.' 'Well, he's stupid!' 'That's what I thought.' It's like the story of the emperor's new clothes isn't it? You have to seek special environments so that everything is affirmed for you - safe and not threatening in any way."

-Ajahn Sumedo


CONSTANT CARNIVAL

stolen from Mark, but so good I just had to put it here:

"Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him."

-Nietzsche

"Let us have a care not to disclose our hearts to those who shut up theirs against us."
-Francis Beaumont

"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
-George Orwell

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."

-Aldous Huxley

A sick society breeds sick people, who, unknown to themselves, suffer unconscious and seemingly invisible symptoms.
As you would avoid a person with a cold or any other sickness in varying degrees in order to avoid contamination yourself, I think the only healthy thing to do is avoid these sick people so as to avoid contracting psychic, emotional, and spiritual disease.
This is not to say they are to be ignored, banished, abused, or deliberately ostracized. We wouldn't do that to a person with a physical sickness that can spread. We interact with them of course, but we do keep a certain distance from them, don't we?
I think it is the same with other levels of sickness.

But I don't think it is their fault. It is easy to know when you are physically sick but many in the modern world never know the multiple dimensions of their possible and mostly unconscious disease...how could they, they are never taught means to know it and instead, are forced to become sick themselves through a system that tells them sick is healthy.

And I have grappled with my tendencies in the past of avoiding certain people...I felt as if I was hiding too much behind a wall...or being too high and mighty...even when I really don't think I am. But somehow today I realized some of the major reasons behind this.
It is just too emotionally, psychically, mentally, and spiritually draining. Other people's essences can infect and get into you if you aren't careful...it happens very subtly and quietly. This can be a good thing...but with sickness, obviously it is not.

These people obviously need medicine, but it is very hard to cure someone when they don't know, and cannot be convinced, of their sickness.

really falling in love with this band now

The Cool Web

Children are dumb to say how hot the day is,
How hot the scent is of the summer rose,
How dreadful the black wastes of evening sky,
How dreadful the tall soliers drulling by,

But we have speech, to chill the angry day,
And speech, to dull the roses's cruel scent,
We spell away the overhanging night,
We spell away the soldiers and the fright.

There's a cool web of language winds us in,
Retreat from too much joy or too much fear:
We grow sea-green at last and coldly die
In brininess and volubility.

But if we let our tongues lose self-possession,
Throwing off language and its watery clasp
Before our death, instead of when death comes,
Facing the wide glare of the children's day,
Facing the rose, the dark sky and the drums,
We shall go mad, no doubt, and die that way.

-Robert Graves

"...for modernity has transformed us, our minds, bodies and spirit, into an alien life form; one not suited to life on earth without the mediating forces of technology, culture and organized religion. We are weak and pitiful in our strength over the earth – in conquering, we have destroyed ourselves."

-WITTR

"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."

-Mark Twain

the winter fades
the ground eases under my step
and the wind turns to kisses

towards the path, in the park
the parents and joggers
the dogwalkers and carriage pushers
keep their distance
firmly set, on the pavement
distracted
they speak of houses, cars, victories

on the hill, amongst the pines
a child looks down under waves of golden dust
surrounded by friends, brothers, toys of wood and stone

________________________


ocean chorus
waves of blue smoke surround

and I sink further into heaven
drifting in droplets
wading in time
to voices familiar and far

swirling like the moon in silver
they strike their notes
guiding the waves
upwards and through my vision




With the weather like it was today, and my further exploration of the Arboretum, I feel as if I am returning to a world I had forgotten existed...one that I missed very much.

cobalt night
on the bridge, over the water
her face reflected dimly
in the passing waves

a distant chorus
a far away melody
fills the cold air
and brings me closer

and I touch her sandpaper heart
as the leaves fall silently
into the water
away from the city


___________________________________


dreams of crimson
creep in through forgotten doors
swarming
buzzing
undeniable

in the basement they shake
they fill my mind with oceans
of wailing ghosts on empty shores

drowned in stale images
fight it back
tear it out

End of the Comedy

Eleven o’clock, and the curtain falls.
The cold wind tears the strands of illusion;
The delicate music is lost
In the blare of home-going crowds
And a midnight paper.

The night has grown martial;
It meets us with blows and disaster.
Even the stars have turned shrapnel,
Fixed in silent explosions.
And here at our door
The moonlight is laid
Like a drawn sword.


-Louis Untermeyer

there's some very beautiful music in this movie
I love this movie

getting drunker/iggy pop's "the idiot"

the city

read this whole thing please

UH OH

this was a nice thing to watch again

The Cure - Let's Go To Bed sélectionné dans Musique et Rock / Pop

"Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength"

-Eric Hoffer

Organic farming under attack

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I think a good experiment for anyone to do, on a regular basis, would be to ask the question "why" more often. Especially regarding your own self.

There is definitely a scale here...too much and you'll drive yourself crazy, but not enough and you are a slave to a certain unconsciousness.

man this blog is so heavy man
I'm not really like this ALL the time, I swear

harder to connect
harder to balance

try to remember those ideas
those tricks and shortcuts
but it breaks through
destroying the solace, the manufactured silence

maybe the weather
maybe the city
I have never felt this

is this the way forward

-------------------------


black fog of words all spoken at once
drifts through the edges of the amber streets
louder than bombs
slow as snakes

I see you in slivers of light
leaning against the wall
a hundred hands all around
grasping the damp, smoky air
they keep me in my place

and when I see you smile
I remember some other place
some other time
and I forget when
and I forget where

_______________________________


"Death belongs to life as birth does, even as walking contains the raising of the foot as much as the laying of it down"

-Rabindranath Tagore

Nostalgia

The waning moon looks upward; this grey night
Slopes round the heavens in one smooth curve
Of easy sailing; odd red wicks serve
To show where the ships at sea move out of sight.

The place is palpable me, for here I was born
Of this self-same darkness. Yet the shadowy house below
Is out of bounds, and only the old ghosts know
I have come, I feel them whimper in welcome, and mourn.

My father suddenly died in the harvesting corn
And the place is no longer ours. Watching, I hear
No sound from the strangers, the place is dark, and fear
Opens my eyes till the roots of my vision seems torn.

Can I go no nearer, never towards the door?
The ghosts and I we mourn together, and shrink
In the shadow of the cart-shed. Must we hover on the brink
Forever, and never enter the homestead any more?

Is it irrevocable? Can I really not go
Through the open yard-way? Can I not go past the sheds
And through to the mowie?--Only the dead in their beds
Can know the fearful anguish that this is so.

I kiss the stones, I kiss the moss on the wall,
And wish I could pass impregnate into the place.
I wish I could take it all in a last embrace.
I wish with my breast I here could crush it, perish it all.

-D. H. Lawrence

Compared with how "normal" society functions and how "normal" people see and interact with the world on an everyday basis, I think having a focused and clear mind which is able to see through illusion and delusion, externally as well as internally, is no less than a completely revolutionary act, and the tools for this are no less than actual magical tools, in my mind.

Vera

Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?
Remember how she said that
We would meet again
Some sunny day?
Vera! Vera!
What has become of you?

Does anybody else here
Feel the way I do?

-Roger Waters


watched the Wall again recently and have been thinking about that piece of work quite a lot lately.
It has a strong affect on me.

almost March and it feels Aok

I want a dagger, and a sword.
Nothing too fancy. Just simple, elegant, black and silver




"All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others."

Cyril Connolly

something at the gate
taking hold

drifting further and further away

"Art has never been made while thinking of art."
Niko Stumpo

"Why should I buy expensive art when I can make my own."
Piero Milani

Eternal Sunday
today is hard to get through somehow


"Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion, rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science."
Gary Zukav

"Any intelligent fool can invent further complications, but it takes a genius to retain, or recapture, simplicity."
E.F. Schumacher

"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed."
Booker T. Washington

I miss the forest

"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence"

-Robert Frost

added a new thing to the "watch or listen" section over there--->

noise
noise
noise
can't quite place it
noise

"The modern hero, the modern individual who dares to heed the call and seek the mansion of that presence with whom it is our whole destiny to be atoned cannot, indeed must not, wait for his community to cast off its slough of pride, fear, rationalized avarice, and sanctified misunderstanding. 'Live,' Nietzsche says, 'as though the day were here.' It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse. And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal- carries the cross of the redeemer- not in the bright moments of his tribe's great victories, but in the silences of his personal despair."

-Joseph Campbell

To all those that are consistently considerate of other human beings on this planet, and who take other people's feelings into account,
To all those who realize that another person is just as valid as you are on all levels-emotionally, spiritually, and physically,
To all those who hold themselves to a sense of honor and integrity and see other people and other life forms as worthy of honor themselves and not something to be used, abused, taken advantage of, lied to, cheated, or looked down upon,

You make this society something I want to be a part of.

I do know people like this, and I am very, very grateful.


But to those who manipulate,
to those who candy coat their words, spout half-truths, lie, and have no desire whatsoever to understand their actions and don't care anyway,
to those who have no consideration whatsoever of other people, or any regard for the consequences of their actions on another's life,
to those who place themselves on altars yet betray themselves with their actions


fuck you


may the pain you cause come back to you many times over until the demons force you to open your mucus covered eyes

to slay a Dragon

"The hero of yesterday becomes the tyrant of tomorrow, unless he crucifies himself today."

"From this point of view of the present there is such a recklessness in this deliverance of the future that it appears to be nihilistic."

-Joseph Campbell

"I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household."

-Jesus Christ (Matthew 10: 34-37)

It seemed so easy
with a smile played ever so delicately
it was unlike me,
and almost horrible

she tells me she's a waitress
she asks me if I smoke

I say no
and she walks outside


later,

"have a good time"
with a delicate and motherly touch
before disappearing into the crowd


I wonder if it hurts her

house/basement show:

ironic moustaches:
predicted: 3
actual: 2

perfectly asymmetrical haircut, fixed with hand every 10 seconds: 1

ironic trucker hat (hockey team): 1

plaid shirts: 4 or 5?

hipster jerking/dancing awkwardly to a metal band: 1



secret circus

in a dream

I am on a forest path. I pass a house, and two grey cats with greenish yellow eyes come out and approach me. They are friendly, and crawl up onto my back, perched on me as I walk. One gets down close to my right hand, grabs it with both paws, and starts licking it. I think this is cute, and let him do this for what seems like a long time.
When he finally stops and jumps off me, I look down at my hand and see a small hole that goes all the way to the bone, right under my index finger. I didn't realize that at the same time he was licking, he was also burrowing this hole into my palm with his claw. As I look at it closer, the hole becomes bigger until it is a little smaller than a quarter. I see the bone very clearly, and I move my hand about to see the bones move inside.
There is no pain at all, and I marvel at this fact.

"Keep the company of those who seek the truth, and run away from those who claim to have found it." – Vaclav Havel

around the house

"All that essential and indescribable part of man that is called imagination dwells in realms of symbolism and still lives upon archaic myths and theologies. It depends upon modern man to 'reawaken' the inestimable treasures of images that he bears within him and to reawaken the images so as to contemplate them in their purity and assimilate their message"
-Mircea Eliade:

The Industrial Revolution began the process of division of labor between art and technology; the dissociation of the conception from the execution. Bauhaus/De Stijl/Vhutemas attempted to reconcile the two but only succeeded in the abstraction of social relations already at work in the political economy of the industrial and post-industrial age. In an era where the image and even the symbol reign supreme as means of social organisation (witness the use of mythology in recent advertising) all that remains for the artist is to take personal control over the creation of mythologies. The artist thereby replaces priest, magician and shaman in "the, midnight of time’s destitution" (Heidegger)
-Graeme Revell

"Art and the artist create each other simultaneously"
-Graeme Revell

holy shit

"It's not how much you have that makes you rich, it is how little you need that makes you rich"
-Unknown

"Angels, they say, don't know whether it is the living they are moving among, or the dead"
-Rilke

That only which we have within, can we see without. If we meet no Gods, it is because we harbor none. If there is a grandeur in you, you will find grandeur in porters and sweeps.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when every one has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight in order to avoid this? Or are you not terrified by it? I have seen men in real life who so long deceived others that at last their true nature could not reveal itself;..... In every man there is something which to a certain degree prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself; and this may be the case in so high a degree, he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life which extend far beyond himself that he almost cannot reveal himself. But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love, and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all."

-Søren Kierkegaard

"The art world is these days very much about careers and business. It’s more like a banking phenomenon. There’s two ways that it tends to work, one is that someone, maybe just leaving college or whatever in their show, makes a piece of art and it receives very positive attention. It might be that they’re doing black stripes on a yellow background, or everything that they do is just yellow and black. Because that’s what people like, they think OK, that’s what works, that’s what gets the attention, and they do lots more paintings with black and yellow. Eventually they get known as the “black and yellow person.” It’s a formula, but then it’s repeated over and over with very slight variations until they die. And the other way is who they have sex with, which gallery owners they have sex with. Those are the two basic ways that the art world works. I have no interest in doing the same thing every day of my life, to me that’s the same thing as being dead. Why not just go work in a factory, if all you’re going to do is churn stuff out, you may as well go work in a sweatshop. So it’s a great tragedy that modern art has become a slave to familiarity, that people want an artist to keep doing the same thing, and that that’s seen as a positive quality. I mean what art grew from were various people’s attempts to paint or sculpt transcendental mystical divine states. It was religious and it was about epiphanies and about our place in the universe and our relationship with nature. Sometimes it was schematic too, like sand drawings or Navaho maps, and it as ritualized. It wasn’t even about making something that was permanent. It was a ritual that took place for the psychic or physical healing of the tribe. It was magic, and I grew up feeling very strongly that it was supposed to be magic, it was supposed to be about a conversation with nature and the universe. It was also a way to try and describe the indescribable. It’s about the states of consciousness and joy and revelation that can’t be photographed or manufactured. That to me is was art is for. A religious sacred calling, and it was as important as any religious or spiritual belief system. To me art is the religion. The fact that god’s first quality is creation, to me that’s everything. Creativity and the creation of something that didn’t exist before is something ineffable and incredible and unlikely, that you can share with other human beings. But that’s not what we see in the art world very often, in fact it’s usually laughed at. The art world today is so formularized and so much about cliques and pleasing those with money. It’s basically decoration."

-Genesis P-Orridge

2009
day one