i am the lotus

love and light

2012-01-02T13:58:00.003-05:00

“And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been”

- Rilke -

an endlessly changing horizon

2011-12-31T14:59:00.000-05:00

"The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

— Chris McCandless ---

Into the Wild

The clock is ticking OR scraping the barrel

2011-10-10T22:12:00.001-04:00

Friend: I told "so and so" that I want to set you up with him

Me: I thought you said he was gay?

Friend: well, you never know.

Me: in fact, I'd argue that you absolutely do

being human is a guest house

2011-08-19T12:31:00.001-04:00

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

-Rumi-

On Patience or Stop Waiting for the Pancake to Cook

2011-08-08T19:41:00.003-04:00

"Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not waiting passively until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient, we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later, and somewhere else. Let’s be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand."

from Broken Open, by Elizabeth Lesser

the bend in the road

2011-07-18T21:17:00.003-04:00

Ballycastle, 2007

"I shall give life here my best, and I believe it will give its best to me in return. When I left... my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I'm going to believe that the best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend. I wonder how the road beyond it goes--what there is of green glory and soft, checkered light and shadows--what new landscapes--what new beauties--what curves and hills and valleys further on."

Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

On Resistance

2011-06-29T13:41:00.002-04:00

Nantwich, Cheshire, 2010

"Her hoe encounters orach, charlock, thistles, couch-grass - progress is slow; the field is choked with weeds...Now at the edge of the forest, (she) has found a clump of red willow herb - it's a damp little hollow, where the potatoes are small and mouldy but the willow-herb thrives...She hacks away vigorously, her lips pressed shut. She's learned to hate weeds, those useless, destructive things, and she chops away at them implacably...

The red willow-herb lies piled up on the ground; it's been defeated for now. Yes it will grow back, that's what weeds do, and really you should pick it up out of the loosened ground after ploughing, because each bit of individual root left underground will put forth new shoots. But (she) knows the place now; she'll keep an eye on it and she'll keep coming back until the willow-herb is gone for good."

-Hans Fallada, Alone in Berlin (p 370-373)-

i'm watching you (or 'holy semicolons, batman)

2011-03-28T23:34:00.007-04:00

Flowers provided by Kim - Easter 2010

"... They had heaps of theories, always theories, as young people have. It was to explain the feeling they had of dissatisfaction; not knowing people; not being known. For how could they know each other? You met every day; then not for six months, or years. It was unsatisfactory, they agreed, how little one knew people. But she said... she felt herself everywhere; not "here, here, here"; she tapped the back of the seat; but everywhere...So that to know her, or any one, one must seek out the people who completed them; even the places. Odd affinities she had with people she had never spoken to, some woman in the street, some man behind a counter-even trees, or barns. It ended in a transcendental theory which...allowed her to believe...that since our apparitions, the part of us which appears, are so momentary compared with the other, the unseen part of us, which spreads wide, the unseen might survive, be recovered somehow attached to this person or that...

Looking back over that long friendship of almost thirty years her theory worked to this extent. Brief, broken, often painful as their actual meetings had been what with his absences and interruptions...the effect of them on his life were immeasurable. There was a mystery about it. You were given... the actual meeting...In absence, in the most unlikely places, it would flower out, open, shed its scent, let you touch, taste, look about you, get the whole feel of it and understanding, after years of laying lost. Thus she had come to him; on board ship; in the Himalayas; suggested by the oddest things. She had influenced him more than any person he had ever known."

p 152-153

========================

"She would not say of any one in the world now that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on...she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that" p. 8-9

Virginial Woolf "Mrs. Dalloway"

twuuuue looooove

2010-09-26T22:05:00.004-04:00

me: he's clearly excited to see me. He's waiting by the door when I get home. He follows me around the house. He insists on cuddling before we go to sleep. When you find a guy like that...you keep him forever... you marry him... you know?

swede: yes. i know. when you find a MAN like that. not when you find a male of any species like that.

me: oh.

Some Souls

2010-09-04T15:01:00.003-04:00

Some souls have gotten free of their bodies.
Do you see them? Open your eyes for those
who escape to meet with other escapees,

whose hearts associate in a way they have
of leaving their false selves
to live in a truer self.

I don't mind if my companions
wander away for a while.

They will come back like a smiling drunk.
The thirsty ones die of their thirst.

The nightingale sometimes flies from a garden
to sing in the forest.
-rumi-

Drumsound rises on the air,
its throb, my heart.

A voice inside the beat says,
"I know you're tired,
but come, this is the way."
-also rumi-

Found Hearts

2010-07-25T12:48:00.002-04:00

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” little prince

A sketch of country life

2010-06-16T08:07:00.002-04:00

Overheard on the farm:
"...Well he's not afraid to spend a pretty penny on a bit of semen..."

If I can't have a dog I want a cow...

2010-06-12T11:02:00.005-04:00

“To my mind, the only possible pet is a cow. Cows love you. . . . They will listen to your problems and never ask a thing in return. They will be your friends forever. And when you get tired of them, you can kill and eat them. Perfect.”

Bill Bryson quotes (American Writer, b.1946)

Cheshire

2010-06-12T10:46:00.009-04:00

"Anybody can be good in the country."
Oscar Wilde

The Book of Love - Rumi

2010-02-14T20:03:00.004-05:00

"You dance inside my chest where no one sees you..."

"Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground."

"What sort of person says that he or she wants to be polished and pure, then complains about being handled roughly?"

"There's a shredding that's really a healing, that makes you more alive!"

"Friend, our closeness is this:

anywhere you put your foot, feel me in the firmness under you.

How is it with this love,

I see your world and not you?"

FIND YOUR HEART

Howl at the Sky

2010-01-22T13:14:00.002-05:00

"Now he wondered if he wanted to just spend another weekend in his fort. It seemed a good enough idea. He had some thinking to do, about this news about the sun expiring and the resulting void inhaling the earth...

So he had a choice. Would he stay behind the curtain and think things, marinate in his own confusion, or would he put on his white fur suit and howl and scratch and make it known who was boss of this house and all of the world known and unknown?" (Eggers p. 72)
-The Wild Things-

No use teasing the darkness...

2009-10-26T13:52:00.003-04:00

[Christmas Letter, 1966] Most of you, even with all that you have to suffer, are much better off than you realize. Yet the heart of man can be full of so much pain, even when things are exteriorly "all right". It becomes all the more difficult because today we are used to thinking that there are explanations for everything. But there is no explanation for most of what goes on in our own hearts, and we cannot account for it all. No use resorting to mental tranquilizers that even religious explanations sometimes offer. Faith must be deeper than that, rooted in the unknown and in the abyss of darkness that is the ground of our being. No use teasing the darkness to try to make answers grow out of it. But if we learn how to have a deep inner patience, things solve themselves, or God solves them if you prefer, but do not expect to see how. Just learn to wait, and do what you can and help other people.

Thomas Merton. The Road to Joy, Robert E. Daggy, editor (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1989): 94.

Often in helping someone else we find the best way to bear with our own trouble.

The Road to Joy: 94.

did i post this already?

2009-05-28T15:39:00.000-04:00

The Invitation - Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

The Awe-someness of Pie

2009-05-27T19:03:00.007-04:00

Errr, No ... Pi :

"Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love - but sometimes it was so hard to love. Sometimes my heart was sinking so fast with anger, desolation and weariness, I was afraid it would sink to the bottom of the Pacific and I would not be able to lift it back up...

Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression. I thank God it always passed. A school of fish appeared around the net or a knot cried out to be reknotted. Or I thought of my family, of how they were spared this terrible agony. The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining point of light in my heart. I would go on loving" (p. 208-209)

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

"I awoke once during the night. I pushed the canopy aside and looked out. The moon was a sharply defined crescent and the sky was perfectly clear. The stars shone with such fierce, contained brilliance that it seemed absurd to call the night dark. The sea lay quietly bathed in a shy, light-footed light, a dancing play of black and silver that extended without limits all about me. The volume of things was confounding - the volume of air above me, the volume of water around and beneath me. I was half-moved, half- terrified...

For the first time I noticed - as I would notice repeatedly during my ordeal, between one throe of agony and the next - that my suffering was taking place in a grand setting. I saw my suffering for what it was, finite and insignificant, and I was still. My suffering did not fit anywhere, I realized. And I could accept this. It was all right " (p. 177).

Yann Martel - Life of Pi

For no one in particular - you know who you are

2009-05-27T17:57:00.005-04:00

"Next to the speakerphone is a fat daily planner book they keep full of things for me to get done. They want me to account for my next ten years, task by task. Their way, everything in your life turns into an item on a list. Something to accomplish. You get to see how your life looks flattened out.
The shortest distance between two points is a time line, a schedule, a map of your time, the itinerary for the rest of your life.
Nothing shows you the straight line from here to death like a list...
Seeing it down in black and white, somehow you're always disappointed in your life expectancy. How little you'll really get done. The resume of your future."

Chuck Palahniuk - Survivor (p. 269).

---------

"Nothing would change. Every day. This was success. Here was the prize.
Mowing the lawn.
And mowing the lawn.
And mowing the lawn.
Repeat"
(p. 191)

Step Outside the Box

2009-03-27T13:29:00.006-04:00

"And once more I see him the way he appeared to me at the very beginning of the novel: standing at the window and staring across the courtyard to the walls opposite.
This is the image from which he was born. As I have pointed out before, characters are not born like people, of woman: they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thinks no one else has discovered or said something essential about.
But isn't it true that an author can write only about himself?
Staring impotently across a courtyard, at a loss for what to do; hearing the pertinacious rumbling of one's own stomach during a moment of love; betraying, yet lacking the will to abandon the glamorous path of betrayal; raising one's first with the crowds in a Grand March; displaying one's wit before hidden microphones - I have known all these situations, I have experienced them myself, yet none of them has given rise to the person my curriculum vitae and I represent. The characters in my novels are my own unrealized possibilities. That is why I am equally fond of them all and equally horrified by them. Each one has crossed a border (the border beyond which my own "I" ends) which attracts me most. For beyond that border begins the secret the novel asks about. The novel is not the author's confession; it is an investigation of human life in the trap the world has become. But enough. Let us return to [him]" (p 221)

Lightness and Weight

2009-03-27T13:00:00.006-04:00

"The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful. From the time he met [her], no woman had a right to leave the slightest impression on that part of his brain. [She] occupied his poetic memory like a despot and exterminated all trace of other women...

I have said before that metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory." (208-209)

- The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera -

Notes on Illusions

2009-02-01T20:13:00.002-05:00

"The days blurred one into another...I began counting the [time] by the things I learned, the talks we had...and by the miracles that happened now and then along the way..." (p.114)

"The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family group up under the same roof." (p.84)

"You teach best what you most need to learn." (p.60)

"You are always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past" (p.63)

"You seek problems because you need their gifts." (p.71)

Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah - Richard Bach

For lil sis

2009-01-30T18:43:00.004-05:00

"...There's no joy like the joy of the sun coming in..."
-Peter Gabriel and Angelique Kidjo - the song Salala-

on the importance of hygiene

2009-01-26T14:33:00.003-05:00

i forgot to write about this months ago (so some obvious revision because my memory is useless)
visiting one of my magnificent old roomies - the new(ish) mom...

roomie A: (looking at baby) she's going to make a mess of herself and then I'll have to give her another bath.

me: (quizzical look) how often do you have to wash a baby?

roomie A: (obviously not phased by my lack of knowledge) well... about every few days. They don't really get very dirty naturally, unless they make a mess playing.

me: Ha. I have like the same hygiene regiment. there's really no reason to shower EVERY day.

roomie A: yeah. me too. I'm lucky if I have time to shower, anyway.

husband of roomie A: you two are disgusting. no wonder you were roommates. i bet no one else would live with you because you're so dirty.

beginnings, endings & aspirations

2009-01-19T10:34:00.008-05:00

from john o'donohue's conamara blues:

BEFORE THE BEGINNING

Unknown to us, there are moments
When crevices we cannot see open
For time to come alive with beginning.

As in autumn a field of corn knows
When enough green has been inhaled
From the clay and under the skill
Of an artist breeze becomes gold in a day,

When the ocean still as a mirror
Of a sudden takes a sinister curve
To rise in a mountain of wave
That would swallow a village.

How to a flock of starlings
Scattered, at work on grass,
From somewhere, a signal comes
And suddenly as one, they describe
A geometric shape in the air.

When the audience becomes still
And the soprano lets the silence deepen,
In that slowed holding, the whole aria
Hovers nearer than alights
On the wings of breath
Poised to soar into song.

These inklings were first prescribed
The morning we met in Westport
And I was left with such sweet time
Wondering if between us something
Was deciding to begin or not.

-------------------------------------------
DOUBLE EXPOSURE

Sometimes you see us
Run into each other in a place
Where we cannot simply pass,
Say at a party, and you overhear
Our breath quiveringly collect
To shape a voice sure enough
To play out some pleasantry;
Something humorous is preferable,
It covers perfectly and shows
That everything is as it should be.
As smoothly as possible
We allow ourselves to be waylaid
By some other conversation and escape.
Though we move around the room,
We always know where we stand,
Still strangely bound to each other
In this intermittent dance
Between the music, each careful
To hold up the other side of all
We were to each other before
It stopped, and let nothing slip
From the invisible ruin
We carry between us.

-----------------------------------------
FLUENT

I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding.

who do you think you are?

2009-01-12T22:21:00.008-05:00

The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men! A weird life it is, indeed, to be living always in somebody else's imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could at last become real.
-Merton - seven storey mountain

What if the question is not, why am i so infrequently the person i really want to be, but why do i so infrequently want to be the person i really am?
-oriah mountain dreamer - the dance

another case of the mondays

2008-12-08T23:23:00.004-05:00

watching tv.

a speed dating commercial comes on....

mom: have you ever tried speed dating?

me: no. have you?

dad: I have.

mom: oh?

dad: yes. you just push one number on the phone. just one.

mom: that's speed dialing.

dad: yeah, i speed date all the time.

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

watching "raising helen" on the oxygen network.

dad: is that madonna?

me: no, that's kate hudson. she's goldie hawn's daughter.

(sad moment.. kate hudson's character gets bad news)

dad: (sincerely) awwww. I'm sorry madonna.

(music plays)

dad: is that "like a prayer" ?

mom: no. how do you know the name of a madonna song ?

in the dog house

2008-11-22T12:49:00.003-05:00

this morning -

me: mom? dad? where is everyone?

mom: in here watching the news. come say hi.

me: wait a minute, how come the dog gets to sleep in your bed and i have to sleep on the floor?

-------------------------------------------------
this afternoon -

me: what have you been doing all morning?

mom: researching jobs for your father to apply to.

me: wait a minute, how come you don't research and apply for jobs for me?

mom: (quizzical look) do you WANT a job?

me: ah, point taken.

some things make your soul feel clean

2008-11-17T15:40:00.006-05:00

An Email chain From Friends:

L wrote:
At lunch today:

H: "Hold hands!"
I: [from across the table] "I can't reach, H!"
L: "I'll connect you guys."

[All holding hands]

H: [looking at plate] "Thank you Kefir. Thank you broccoli. Thank you mashed potatoes. Thank you mushrooms. Thank you..."
[I does the same to her food].

The "thank-you chicken"'s were my favourite.

What are you grateful for today?

-------------------------------------------------------
S wrote:
today I am grateful for coffeeshops in Tel Aviv
the nicest waitresses on the planet
for busses that take me where I want to go
for my dad's wine fridge (yes, wine fridge)
for shrinking bank accounts that whittle down my options
for computers that burn CDs
for candles that burn
for the quiet of night
for the internet on the wings of which L's message came to me..
-------------------------------------------------------
D wrote:
For time, rolling out like an enormous string of yarn, the one remedy that we can count on to eventually soothe out any pain and smooth out the roughness of almost any memory. The only trail that even when utterly cluttered up by cities, building, smog and individuals, will eventually carry us on.

For the harshness and obstinacy of the new lampposts installed between my parents condominium and the sea - smudging out with yellowing mediocrity the sole place in Tel Aviv without any light pollution - gently pencilled out on the very first night with the harsh diagonal lines of sea-storm rain.

For desk lamps and books, pistachio nuts and red wine.

For S's music, which had been helping me a lot in the last couple of days.

For the beautiful space that I now work in, with the red sun rushing in through the salted blue wooden shutters and splashing on the earthenware tiles. For the smell of wood emanating from the double doors.

For opportunities that after a barren summer come scratching at the doors.

For lacunae of friendship and light, like the house on Colenso parade.

For chances like this to pause and reflect and write it down.

For the two of you, across an incomprehensible ocean and a mass of very interesting land.

For friends.

Costa Rica by Doga - 2008

back to my roots

2008-11-10T14:54:00.003-05:00

me: gosh, is it only 5:30 pm? I could go to sleep right now.

grandma (smiling mischievously): well, what else is new?

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

mom and auntie sift through an old scrap book...

dad: (sees an old photo of clark gable) that clark gable, he's a handsome man. i'd like to date him.

uncle: don't be ridiculous. you can't date dead people.

soul mates ?

2008-11-06T17:50:00.002-05:00

"Seymore used consciously to affect a whole set of different kinds of duplicity, of which he was proud, and he had carried the mendacium jocosum or "humorous lie" to its utmost extension and frequency. You could sometimes gauge the falsity of his answersby their promptitude: the quicker the falser. The reason for this was probably, that he was thinking of something else, something very abstruse and far from the sphere of your question, and he could not be boethered to bring his mind all that way back, to think up the real answer...
there was generally no inconvenience about this, for two reasons. Since Seymour generally gave his false answers only to practical questions of fact, their falsity did not matter: we were all too impractical. Besides his false answers were generally more interesting than the truth. Finally, since we knew they were false anyway, we had the habit of seeing all his statements, in the common factual order by a kind of double standard, instituting a comparison between what he had said and the probable truth, and this cast many interesting and ironical lights upon life as a whole. ...

moral theologians say that the mendacium jocosum in itself does not exceed a venial sin."

- Merton - Seven Storey Mountain p. 200ish -

they're still awesomely hilarious... i just forget to write it down

2008-11-05T20:34:00.006-05:00

ok...did you ever listen to ingrid michaelson?

she's got this song, about marriage i think, that goes like this...

"what if i never let you in... and chase you with a rolling pin"

the song is playing as mom and I drive somewhere...

me: "mom, what if i never let you in... and chased you with a rolling pin"

mom (quietly thoughtful): "well... i guess i'd grab your arm... and try to spin you around to protect myself"

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

me: dad, mom is MAKING me feel bad about dirtying the dishes.

dad: let me show you where to put the dishes (brings me out the back door to the deck).
these little slots here (pointing to the holes between the deck boards) are the perfect size to just slip the plates in. the knives and forks fit too.

me: yeah sure, but what about the bowls and cups?

dad: well... you know how archeologists find all those pieces of old dishes? you just have to break them up, or throw them under a tree or something. what we're doing is leaving little bits of history for people in the future, so that they know what things were like.

mom: what are you two doing out here?
-------------------------------------------------------

me: mom, i'm hungry. are we going to have dinner?

mom: (preparing plates) yes it's done. sit at the table.

me (to dad 10 seconds later): this is sure taking a long time since she said it was done. i'm really hungry.

dad: maybe we should order a pizza or something.

me: at least it'd get here faster.

mom: i'm standing next to the block of knives.

nostalgia - or the 3rd time the car radio was stolen... 3rd - not last

2008-10-24T12:18:00.002-04:00

email chain with lil sis about a year ago:

lil sis: i miss you.the radio may have been stolen again.

me: the radio "may" have been stolen?

lil sis:and by "may have" I mean, was.

last night roommate cooked for me and I threw up

me: eff that effing radio.

from now on we just hum.

and so we did....

back at it

2008-10-14T20:44:00.004-04:00

mom: (to dad) don't you want mustard with that liverwurst?

dad: yeah. but i really have no way of getting it. ( long sigh....)

me: i'll get it for you.

mom: don't do it. he'll come to expect it.

dad: ok. just so you realize our daughter is just doing me a favor. REALLY... she's doing YOUR job.

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

me: can we get a dog?

mom: we have a dog.

me: i know.

remember to remember

2008-10-07T16:54:00.003-04:00

"It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember... and I need to remember... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in."

"...There's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain. And I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday.

-American Beauty-

one for the road

2008-10-07T16:51:00.002-04:00

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!”

-Kerouac-

What will your verse be?

2008-10-06T20:20:00.000-04:00

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute, we read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, and engineering. These are the noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "oh me, oh life! of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless -- of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer that you are here that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse - the powerful play goes on.. and you may contribute a single verse, what will your verse be?

-Robin Williams, Dead poets society

A letter of Apology

2008-10-03T20:13:00.003-04:00

This morning ---
Lil sis: Do you have any jewelry with red in it to match the dress I'll wear to the wedding this weekend?

me: This has red in it....

Sometimes, I'm sorry you didn't get one of those big sisters who knows about makeup and jewelry and boys. Other times I think you should borrow the friendship bracelet to wear at the wedding.

suffering is funny. so's your face.

2008-09-15T09:06:00.000-04:00

“We know when we are following our vocation when our soul is set free from preoccupation with itself and is able to seek God and even to find Him, even though it may not appear to find Him. Gratitude and confidence and freedom from ourselves: these are signs that we have found our vocation and are living up to it even though everything else may seem to have gone wrong. They give us peace in any suffering. They teach us to laugh at despair. And we may have to.”

From No Man is an Island by Thomas Merton.
Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich Inc., New York, 1955. Page 140.

long walk to forever

2008-09-02T08:48:00.002-04:00

Ballycastle by Florence - August 2008

J and I stroll along the beach arm in arm as the sun sets in the distance and waves crash as the tide rolls in...

J: oh, look at all the lovely couples. how romantic.

me: yeah...

J: let's throw rocks at them!

ha ha horoscope

2008-09-01T07:20:00.002-04:00

''Revel in being part of a community, for the feeling of belonging to something greater than yourself can ground you in ways that may not be obvious at first.''

On the road again

2008-06-30T22:44:00.004-04:00

"In one sense we are always traveling, and traveling as if we did not know where we were going.
In another sense, we have already arrived"

-T. Merton-

the apple and the tree

2008-06-28T19:29:00.003-04:00

driving along a country road, dad and I see an elderly man holding a young boys hand - the two walking together...

dad: sigh....grandchildren. when do you think i might see those? HAHAHAHAHA!

my tv wasteland

2008-06-15T22:50:00.003-04:00

Today, out of curiosity, I was flipping through the TV channels "just to see what was on".

And i noticed that Lifetime had this movie playing, The Capture of the Green River Killer, and that its running time was 4 hours and i thought, "my, that's a bit excessive, isn't it? who would watch a 4 hour movie?"

and then i proceeded to watch that movie.
on lifetime.
for four hours.
so there's that.

at least it had tom cavanagh.

seriously

2008-06-11T18:08:00.002-04:00

mom: here. hold these flowers [shoving bundle of flowers into my hands]

me: ok, why?

mom: now walk slowly - almost like you're, i don't know... "processing"... like down an aisle...

me: wait a minute... [drops flowers and points finger] you stop right there!!!

mom: AHAHAHAHAHA!

the one where my mom thinks she's the bachelorette & more wedding blah blah

2008-06-09T22:14:00.007-04:00

me: what were you doing upstairs?

mom: putting the air conditioner in the window.

me: what!? it's heavy. are you crazy? (rhetorical)

mom: well, you said you didn't want to lift it.

me: well, i want to help you lift it more than i want you to die from lifting it.

mom: it's fine. i just dragged it across the floor and put it on up there.

me: MOM! what are you thinking? i thought we had an understanding... a connection. you were starting to seem like a mother to me.

mom: oh, well... sorry babe. i'm just not feeling the spark between us. i do appreciate you putting yourself out there, though...

me: I PUT MY HEART ON THE LINE FOR YOU... AND YOU DONT EVEN CALL WHEN YOU NEED HELP!

mom: yeah, i'm sorry but it looks like you're going to have to go home.

me: I AM HOME!! what is wrong with you?!

mom: HA HA HA HA HA HA.....HAHAHAHAHA.....AHAHAHAHA!
======================================================

mom and i invented a drinking game.
1. watch the bachelor/bachelorette
2. drink everytime there is mention of:

a. a connection
b. putting your heart out there
c. "i agree"
d. "going home"

===============================================
me: mom, i need your help.

mom: what? do you want me to help you pick out your wedding dress? that's what mrs. kravitz is doing with her daughter today.

me: argh ga blah!

Sometimes when I read magazines...

2008-06-06T11:23:00.004-04:00

I realize that the article I'm reading has been written by or references one of my professors.

Usually it's cosmo - How to make someone like you! How to get your man to talk to you!

But just recently - one of my other favorites appeared in Ode Magazine - on (un)forgiveness and Northern Ireland, funny enough.

"I can't go back to yesterday - because I was a different person then"

2008-06-04T20:35:00.005-04:00

There comes a pause, for human strength will not endure to dance without cessation; and everyone must reach the point at length of absolute prostration.

-Lewis Carroll-

Belfast - 2007

and other favorites...

'But I don't want to go among mad people,' said Alice. 'Oh, you can't help that,' said the cat. 'We're all mad here.'

If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.

Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.

Thoughts on love and marriage

2008-06-03T19:51:00.006-04:00

Upon return from my cross-continental wedding extravaganza...

me: so, all of my friends are now married and/or have babies. for some reason b's father made a special point to tell me not to "rush into all of this... there's plenty of time"

mom: well, there is no rush. And you'll meet the right person.

me: OR i can just live at home forever.

mom: yeah... we'll pull out the phone book when we get home and find you a date.
---------------------------------------

to be continued...

[insert some more funny stuff to come]

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

and a serious one (so mom doesn't think i'm bitter) and because i'm actually thrilled for my friends and family:

May you be blessed with good friends.
May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.
May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where there is great love, warmth, feeling and forgiveness.
May this change you.
May it transfigure that which is negative, distant or cold in you.
May you be brought into the real passion, kinship and affinity of belonging.
May you treasure your friends.
May you be good to them and may you be there for them; may they bring you all the blessings, challenges, truth and light that you need for your journey.
May you never be isolated; but may you always be in the gentle nest of belonging with your anam cara.

grad school destroys lives or at least posture

2008-05-18T14:11:00.004-04:00

me: argh ga blah!

mom: what's the matter?

me: my shoulder muscles are killing me. they've been all knotty for five years. I've been thinking of getting like, botox injections into each of those muscles. Then they'll be like, immobile for however long that lasts... so the knots will have to go away. There's no way I could aggravate them.

mom: um... or you could just relax?

me: i don't understand.

mom: you know... maybe practice some of that meditation and relaxation stuff that you've, curiously, also been studying for the past five years?

me: [bewildered look] but botox would obviously be faster. PLUS... no unsightly shoulder wrinkles!!

over the river and through the woods

2008-05-16T13:59:00.005-04:00

me: who's my best girl? you are, simon! wanna go for a walk?

simon: panting, pacing, whining = yes!

me: ok. ok. put on your fancy red dress (running harness), we're going out!

[stage direction: dress dog, put on ipod, go for walk]

me (skipping, moon walking, twirling the leash like a jump rope): atta girl, spin into the twirl! me and you simon, we're love on the rocks!

[thought bubble: no one else can hear the music can they? shrug]

me: no, simon! don't pee on the fire hydrant - that's so cliche!

simon: [pees anyway. on everything]

me: I'm certain you ALREADY peed on that, stop it.

simon: [pees anyway & stops to over-smell a tree].

me [pulling on leash - noticing dog won't budge - start to pull on the leash like that dance move where you bait a fake hook, catch your partner and reel them in]

simon: [unimpressed]

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

me: [chewing and sticking tongue out]

mom: I so enjoy your company!

me: [meager belch]

mom: really, don't go home just yet. stay another day?

me: no response. i get, no response!

spring has sprung?

2008-05-11T22:55:00.002-04:00

"When one flower blooms, spring awakens everywhere."

Imagine that

2008-05-09T15:22:00.003-04:00

It's normal AND healthy... and it helped me to learn empathy, ok?....

On Imaginary Friends

an IHOP extravaganza

2008-04-26T20:52:00.005-04:00

mom: well, what do you think? will you need me here that weekend to support you? or can I manage to get away for a few days?

dad: well...you have to do what you have to do to take care of YOU.

mom: that being said?

dad: I come first.

-------------------------------------------------------
wandering around home depot...

dad: I lost my screw.

store employee: haven't we all?
-------------------------------------------------------

me: well, what gives you cholesteral?

mom: fatty food I guess.

dad: meat.

me: I guess i'm gonna be a vegetarian.

mom: you do realize what you just ordered is basically a plate full of meat?

me: right. sure. um... after today.

speaking of meat... have you seen that commercial where the girl carries the bacon around in her purse, because the smell attracts men better than perfume?

mom: yeah. it's funny.

me: yeah, i'm gonna do that.

mom: good. then you can get a boyfriend from around here. named rocco or something.

me: roger. ixnay on the bacon. over.

dad: they got free toothpicks.

-------------------------------------------------
it begins to rain.
standing under the doorway overhang...

dad (to mom): can you get the car any closer?

mom (standing 5 feet away, car parked in the first spot next to the door): sure -- [begins to back the car away ]

More often than not I'm redundant

2008-04-21T23:10:00.004-04:00

Just now...

me: MOM!!!

mom: what?

me: Nothing.

mom: frustrated glare.

me: HA! SUCKER! Every time!

[mom: I don't think I ever spoke to my mother like that

me: yeah, but she would have laughed just like you!]
----------------------------------------------------------
And earlier...

me: I took Priscilla here for a walk today. So, she's all tuckered out. Also, she doesn't like you anymore because I'm the only one who's ever home with her.

mom: Why do you insist on calling the dog by female names. HIS name is SIMON and HE is a boy.

me: I know. But that's not you talking, mom, that's society. Why do you have to put her in a gender box?

-------------------------------------------------------------
me: Monday, Wednesday and Friday the hired help are off. I have to make my own breakfast and lunch.

mom: Oh?

me: yeah, because on those days my dad needs assisted living with him on the road. I guess we can't afford both or something.

dad: [nods in agreement]

mom: you two have a very short window of assistance here, and it's closing quickly.

me: I think we should probably get them name tags so I know what to call them. I mean, what is that lady's name? Just "staff" I guess or 'aunt mom', but I feel a little awkward calling her by familial terms.

What do you want from me?

2008-04-17T15:11:00.006-04:00

me: WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!!!

mom: Grandchildren. Immediately.

me: (panic attack).

mom: Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!!!!!!

------------------------------------------------------
me: dad, why does my mom hate me?

dad: i just don't know anymore.

mom: um... when your child asks you why their mother hates them the correct response is probably something more like "she doesn't hate you, dear"

dad: what?
--------------------------------------------------------
mom: you'd better make yourself a dentist appointment before you move on and switch your geography again.

me: what makes you think i'm going anywhere? ever?

Ode to Avocado OR That's so Revisionist of You

2008-04-15T12:00:00.006-04:00

me: I love you avocado. I do. You and your green salty goodness. Do you think my love for my future husband can compare to my love for avocado?

mom: Um.... yes, obviously he'll have to have all the qualities you love in avocado?

me: Like tasty deliciousness?

mom: Um... sure.

me: No, I don't think so. I mean, I suppose I don't LOVE avocado... I am DESIROUS of avocado. I don't want to GIVE myself to avocado so much as i want to POSSESS avocado...CONSUME avocado.

mom: blank stare.

me: do you ever worry that having learned a whole bunch of theoretical crap influences the way you experience life... like... you can't just experience life anymore...you automatically question the nature of different experiences ?

mom: I'm curious to see how much of this is because of your dissertation and how much of it is just naturally pathological.

The hanged man

2008-04-11T13:01:00.005-04:00

My tarot card of the day:

May your sacrifices be meaningful

Yes, suppose it does feel a bit like being hung over a pyre.

The favor of your reply is requested...

2008-04-06T11:53:00.003-04:00

__ Delighted to attend

__Terribly sorry to decline, but have great excuse
(please state below)
__________________________________
(convincing reason)

__Not at all sorry to decline, so there...

Name(s) of Wedding Revelers
____________________________________

--------------------------------------------------------
From N and G's wedding invitations.
This is one wedding i'm thrilled to attend.
AND I get to wear a party hat.

on priorities

2008-03-28T13:01:00.001-04:00

Know that joy is rarer, more difficult and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation.
-Andre Gide-

I have two very important things to do today: eat and sleep.
-Dalai Llama-

more or less

2008-03-24T23:36:00.004-04:00

"I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done for them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor - such is my idea of happiness."

Tolstoy

Things that I think are funny (and most other people don't) - part II

2008-03-21T15:04:00.005-04:00

me: BUSTER!!! BUSTER!!! BUSTER!!!
The dog never comes when I call him.

mom: That's because his name isn't Buster. It's Simon. Buster's dead.

me: I know.

mom: I can't wait until you finish your dissertation.

-----------------------------------------------------------
me: MOM! MOM! MOM!

mom: what?

me: nothing.

-----------------------------------------------------------
transcribing interview data (or any typing really) along with irish music (in the riverdance tradition). The click click is almost as thrilling as actually being able to step dance.

My Own Dubliners Vignette OR My First Irish Crack

2008-03-17T15:21:00.006-04:00

A few [cough, cough.. six] years ago I was waiting on que at the bus station in Dublin. In front of me was an elderly man, in an irish knit sweater and cap with a charming brogue. The following is a dramatization of our interaction.

My long lost irish grandfather: "Where are yous headed?
20 yr. old me: "To Belfast."
My long lost irish grandfather: "Ah... I hear there's good [crack] in Belfast".
20 yr. old me: "Um....excuse me, sir [grampy]?"
My 20 yr. old thought bubble: [He's awfully old to be into street drugs].

CRAIC - "fun, enjoyment, abandonment, or lighthearted mischief; often in the context of drinking or music".

get your green on

2008-03-17T13:10:00.005-04:00

rainbow over corrymeela - photo by katrina price 2007

...Heard a siren from the docks...
Smelled the spring on the smoky wind...

a stroll through biertan

2008-03-16T17:18:00.004-04:00

"The MIRACLE

is not to walk on thin AIR

or WATER,

but to walk

on EARTH."

-Thich Nhat Hanh-

Inextricable

2008-03-10T18:44:00.006-04:00

-Belfast, Botanic Gardens July 2007(with lil sis' camera)-

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises

was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the

more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that

was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very

wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and

you shall find it is only that which has given you

sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and

you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that

which has been your delight.

-Kahlil Gibran-

pockets of peace

2008-03-10T11:29:00.007-04:00

New England Peace Pagoda - Leverett, MA

(special thanks to Tyler for the camera loan)

you're just jealous 'cause I'm chosen

2008-03-09T19:55:00.005-04:00

in an email from N, my jewtastic friend, who leaves Monday for Israel:

"PS. what do you want from the Holy Land [Israel] , other than, say, the second coming [Return of the Messiah/Final Judgment/End of the World]? Keep in mind that I will likely be going to the church of the holy sepulcher where they say Mr. First Coming himself [Jesus] was crucified - and will be happy to buy you/your mom/other catholics a nice olive wood rosary that I have placed on the alter on which His [Jesus'] body was annointed (with photographic evidence). It's no trouble..."

really, how can i refuse that offer?

for those of you who dont have friends to remind you of their chosenness.

and i hate to say i told you so...

2008-03-08T23:24:00.002-05:00

this week from my fortune cookie:

in case your eyesight isn't any better than mine: "Among the lucky, you are the chosen one."

(and then there's some soy sauce, obviously. And some Lucky Numbers)

in case yo mamma never told you you're a winner

2008-03-08T23:23:00.000-05:00

in your dreams

2008-03-07T16:58:00.006-05:00

or MY dreams.

i was giggling remembering this as i fell asleep.
then i dreamt i posted it [i know! exciting dreams!]
so... what the hey...

s: [knowing glare] "you need to stop running away from your emotions."
me: mmmm i need to use the lieu. where is it? upstairs? right back, then we can talk about whatever it is that you were saying.

An open invitation

2008-03-06T19:08:00.003-05:00

Assignment #35

Ask your [family] to describe what you do...Don't know? Make it Up!
Note: i'm using family liberally

REPORTS:Ask three [family members] to write down a description of what it is they think you do with your time. Ask them to try to think about how you live your life and what are your main activities and interests. They could give a particular example of something you are doing, for example "at the moment Susie is building a car, and it is taking up most of her evenings and weekends....," but they should not focus on examples of things you have done in the past. Also you are not asking them to say what they think of what you are doing, but only to describe it in as much detail as they know. Don't let the members of your family compare notes (until the assignment is complete) and similarly try not to put words into their mouth or tell them what they should write. This can be of any length.

For example, reader "d" writes:
[cOm] is reading this note now. and super poking people. and probably missing calls on her cell phone. she plays with an average of 7 missed calls and 3 voicemails on a regular day.

Growing Pains

2008-03-06T18:41:00.003-05:00

When did I get so old that chicken wings give me indigestion?
Chicken Wings! Eff!!! Like, one of my favorite foods!!
What the H - E - DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS?!

[Grumble Grumble]

scars are souveniers you never lose.

2008-03-05T15:06:00.006-05:00

Assignment #11Photograph a scar and write about it.

Photograph a scar on your body or on someone else's body. Make it a close-up shot so that it shows just the scar. Include a story about how the scar happened. Please do not send images of wounds that are fresh and have not healed. Only images of scars will be accepted.

In August of 2003 I moved to Worcester. In the Summer of 2005 I moved out of my apartment on Main St.

This scar began with a self-assembled futon...

You buy a futon without directions you're likely to injure yourself in it's assembly. Especially if you happen to be me. And of course that happened...And little sis and I almost killed each other trying to put it together...

But it wasn't until 2005 that I decided I could take the thing apart on my own. And dropped most of it on my left hand. Hence, a lasting reminder of my early graduate school career and our mouse ridden, paint chipping, crack whore neighbor shouting next door, smells like chinese food from the restaurant downstairs, first apartment ever!

Fear the Future

2008-03-04T13:31:00.006-05:00

Most days I choose not to lay stock in tarot cards. Mostly because this horrid card tends to pop up on just about every reading I've ever had. And it's been right. So therefore, I do not believe in it. Obviously.

However, if you actually believe such things, you can tell from the picture that my love life is clearly going to be awesome. Awesome just like me.

Cause to fear YOUR future.

Things that I think are funny (and most other people don't) - Part I

2008-03-02T11:44:00.007-05:00

Setting this picture that I took with my camera phone as my desktop background and then saying... "oh NO! my computer froze!!!"

get it?? froze. cuz it's a computer... and the picture is of a frozen window?

hello? Is this thing on?

Desiderata

2008-03-01T23:32:00.002-05:00

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

--Max Ehrmann--

snip bits from worcester

2008-03-01T23:23:00.004-05:00

[abridged from memory and my recent visit with my post-roomie and her fiance]

the future groom: yeah, she's my sugar mamma. she'll pay all my bills.
the future bride: [nods in agreement] yup...
me: yeah, um... well, i have a sugar mamma too... she pays for everything...she just happens to also be my REAL mom!

[insert knowing giggles]

yeah, i'm 26. so, there's that.

i am awesomeness embodied

2008-02-28T13:42:00.007-05:00

lil sis is sick, but she still manages to pull herself out of bed and drive S (who is visiting from Israel) and I to back bay station to catch the "Fast train" to worcester at 6:20ish-pm.
We're there with a few minutes to spare.
Awesomeness.

I manage to check the tv monitor... "worcester - 6:21pm - track 7...perfect".
I am master tour guide.

So I clumsily lug my suitcase down the stairs to the tracks.
The train arrives...we begin to board...
conductor mumbles something "blah blah blah," who can be bothered to listen?

We climb aboard the TWO STORY train... gosh there's hardly ever a TWO STORY train on the way BACK to worcester. Isn't this a nice little treat for my lanky foreign friend...More leg room!
SWEET!

As S complains that you can't see out the foggy grime & slime covered commuter rail windows the train stops. "Final stop... South Station".
Wait, what? Did I just take the train in the wrong direction.

S: "you ask the conductor. It's your language."
A fair point, even if it is bourne of laziness...this i understand.

So i bounce off the train, leaving my suitcase behind in an act of optimism. At least if we went in the wrong direction this train should turn around and head back to worcester, right? Right?!
In my cheeriest musterable voice I address the mumbling conductor, "Oh gosh (yes I say gosh), I absolutley just hopped aboard your train in the wrong direction...will this same one be the one returning to worcester?"
conductor: "I said right in front of you that this train was going to south station."
me: "oh. well, i suppose i didn't hear"
conductor: " the next train to worcester isn't until 7:15"...
Awesome.

and it's the one that makes every stop along the way.
Awesome.

we sit in the station.
So much for the "fast train"... I manage to have bought us an extra hour and a half of quality time.

oooooooh I'm awesomeness embodied.

Invincible Summer

2008-02-25T13:31:00.006-05:00

"In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer"

-A. Camus-

i will never reach Ixtlan

2008-02-20T09:39:00.005-05:00

"yet in my feelings...in my feelings sometimes I think I'm just one step from reaching it. Yet I never will. In my journey I don't even find the familiar landmarks I used to know. Nothing is any longer the same..."

"If you survive the shock, which I'm sure you will, since you're strong and have been living like a warrior, you will find yourself alive in an unknown land. Then, as is natural to all of us, the first thing you will want to do is to start on your way back [home]. What you left there is lost forever...at a time like that everything we love or hate or wish for has been left behind. Yet the feelings in a man do not die or change, and the sorcerer starts on his way back home knowing that he will never reach it, knowing that no power on earth, not even his death, will deliver him to the place, the things, the people he loved."

"[it] will change your idea of the world...That idea is everything; and when that changes, the world itself changes."

Don Juan recalled a poem -

"...and I will leave. But the birds will stay, singing:
and my garden will stay, with its green tree,
with its water well.
Many afternoons the skies will be blue and placid,
and the bells in the belfry will chime,
as they are chiming this very afternoon.
The people who have loved me will pass away,
and the town will burst anew every year.
But my spirit will always wander nostalgic
in the same recondite corner of my flower garden..."

"That is the feelings Genaro is talking about...In order to be a sorcerer a man must be passionate. A passionate man has earthly belongings, and things dear to him - if nothing else, just the path where he walks...Genaro left his passion in Ixtlan: his home, his people, all the things he cared for. And now he wanders around in his feelings; and sometimes, as he says, he almost reaches Ixtlan..."

"being a passionate man, he must have had so many ties of the heart, so many things he cared for and left behind..."

"Only as a warrior can one surive the path of knowledge," he said. "Because the art of a warrior is to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man."

Carlos Castanedo - Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan [264-]

this is why we can't have nice things....

2008-02-20T09:35:00.002-05:00

reconciliation of ideas?

2008-02-15T10:58:00.001-05:00

"You don't have a snowball's chance in hell of being like…any…hero.
The only person that you have the possibility of being like is yourself.
And that's really the challenge of mindfulness... is to be yourself
And of course the irony is, you already are.
But what does that mean?
And how can we embody that knowing and be that knowing...
moment by moment?..."
- Jon Kabat-Zinn-

with...

emulating the practice and wisdom of 'guru's?

we are all of paper

2008-02-14T16:59:00.005-05:00

"But there are forces that don't let you turn back and undo things, because to do so would be to deny what is already in motion, to unwrite and erase passages, to shorten the arc of a story you don't own" (85).

"They walked south and off the page, leaving no footprints...there would be no sequel to the sadness."

-Plascencia - The People of Paper

sketchbook

2008-02-14T15:20:00.006-05:00

there are places i'll remember...

On becoming

2008-02-14T15:15:00.003-05:00

"And now here I was needing some kind of guidance and receiving none. I was neither approved nor disapproved. I was not taught. I was told nothing. I just had to get on with it, and "it" was nothing less than the whole business of being me. And it was precisely "me" who was giving all the trouble."
-Ian Dallas- The Book of Strangers (116)

An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road.

2008-02-07T14:09:00.000-05:00

"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

— Chris McCandless ---
Into the Wild

I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.

2008-02-07T11:19:00.000-05:00

The only journey is the one within.
-Rilke-

I can't pick just a few...YOU choose.

do not seek the path

2008-02-07T11:04:00.001-05:00

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
-Thomas Merton-

The Science of a Meaningful Life

2008-02-05T15:13:00.000-05:00

For atypically uplifting news check out

Greater Good Magazine

The Road to Friendship

2008-02-05T13:08:00.000-05:00

soon new friends who became old friends become new friends

"I love that moment when you know that this person in front of you, walking into your life, is going to be a friend. It’s one of those things making life so worthwhile, so precious... When two people carve out a space in their schedule to meet, one-on-one, eye-to-eye; it can be a risk, as well as an effort. More often than not, it is doubly rewarding. You let someone in, you find something out. The day after, you smile thinking about your encounter. You wonder what other things you might come to share, what other times you will spend together. "

-S. on new friends-

Easy and Not so Easy Actions to Help Darfur

2008-02-04T16:57:00.000-05:00

1. www.Investorsagainstgenocide.org - based out of Boston, Local divestment efforts that may be interesting to those working in or with some of these companies or have pension plans or whatever already

2. info on Dream for Darfur - the olympic campaign to gain chinese help in ending the genocide:http://www.savedarfur.org/page/content/torchrun

3. Darfur Fridays - using casual fridays to promote awareness (http://darfursf.org/content/?page_id=119) Dress down for Darfur, etc.

4. Interested in the presidential elections? Doesnt matter if youre a Dem or a Rep. - www.askthecandidates.org ... make sure that Darfur is a campaign priority. ESP THIS TUESDAY

5. Jewish World Watch - N's organization... www.jewishworldwatch.org offering, amongst other things, two really concrete effective projects - donate solar cookers so women dont have to collect fire wood... concretely preventing rape and murder AND the backpacks project... which organizes education supplies for kids in the refugee camps so that they can get an education.

Of course there's loads more. This weekend's conference in DC was really informative to say the least.

see attle.

2008-02-04T15:35:00.000-05:00

Seeds of Compassion

What does compassion look like?

7 th graders have a better understanding of compassion than my dissertation will convey.

Unavoidable.

bells of mindfulness

2008-01-28T14:52:00.000-05:00

"When we see a red light or a stop sign, we can smile at it and thank it, because it is a bodhisattva helping us return to the present moment. The red light is a bell of mindfulness. We may have thought of it as an enemy, preventing us from achieving our goal. But now we know the red light is our friend, helping us resist rushing and calling us to return to the present moment where we can meet with life, joy and peace. Even if you are not the driver, you can help everyone in the car if you breathe and smile."

- Thich Nhat Hanh-

Eliot on grad school?

2008-01-28T14:22:00.001-05:00

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty [six] years-
Twenty [six] years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres-
Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whome one cannot hope
To emulate-but there is no competition-
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

-East Coker-
T.S. Eliot

Distance makes the heart grow fonder?

2008-01-28T14:15:00.000-05:00

"And I remember thinking, even though I knew that the Pentagon had been hit by a hijacked plane, that we were very far from the fighting, from the heat and dust I'd come from in Kabul..."

"He wondered how the distance that he felt in the Pentagon affected the decisions made in the building. How would his feelings about the conduct of the war change if everything he'd just seen, the boys who had lost their potato salesman father, the girls with the blowing-over blackboard, and all the wounded attempting to walk the streets of Kabul with the pieces of limbs the land mines and cluster-bombs had left them, were just numbers on a laptop screen?"

-Three Cups of Tea-

snip-bits from utica

2008-01-23T12:35:00.000-05:00

me: i love simon but he doesn't love me. sometimes that happens.
mom: yeah it's called unrequited love.
me: yeah, i have that. i have unrequited love with simon.

me: (hug simon and try to pet him.)
simon: (growls and squirms away from me)
me: yeah?! well i hate you too!
mom: you realize you just said 'i hate you too' to a dog?

Shut up Numerology...You don't KNOW me.

2008-01-15T18:06:00.000-05:00

"Show others they can depend on you today; be focused and work hard. You may feel like procrastinating in the face of all the demands that are placed on you. It's important today to follow through on your words with action and avoid making promises you can't fulfill."

It's Easy Being Green?

2008-01-04T17:45:00.001-05:00

I'm not Oprah's biggest fan, but this isn't just hip it's the future (or lack thereof).

Check it out.