Thursday, December 29, 2011

My Moon, My Man



"My Moon, My Man" - Feist

My moon, my man
So changeable and
Such a loveable lamb to me

My care, my coat
Leave on a high note
There's nowhere to go but on

Heart on my sleeve
Not where it should be
The song's out of key again

My moon's white face
What day and what phase
It's the calendar page again

Take it slow
Take it easy on me
And shed some light
Shed some light on me please
Take it slow
And shed some light
Shed some light on me please

My moon and me
Not as good as we've been
It's the dirtiest clean I know

My care, my coat
Leave on a high note
There's nowhere to go
There's nowhere to go

Take it slow
Take it easy on me
And shed some light
Shed some light on me please
Take it slow
And shed some light
Shed some light on me please

My moon my moon my man
My moon my moon my man
My moon my moon my man
My moon my moon my man





Saturday, December 17, 2011

Mystic Prism







Their Ideas are Fried in Fat

Posse Bonus - Tori Amos



This is your posse bonus
This is your extra
This is your posse bonus
Because I like you

This is your posse bonus
This is your extra
This is your posse bonus
‘cause I like you

Because I like you
‘cause I like you
porcupine
burrow your way
to freedom

This is your posse bonus
This is your extra
This is your posse bonus
‘cause I like you

Eat your greens
Feed your head
Mind the doubts
they harvest them
Broccoli
Feed your head
Their ideas
are fried in fat

This is your posse bonus
This is your extra
This is your posse bonus
‘cause I like you

Because I like you
‘cause I like you
porcupine
burrow your way
to freedom

You say you’re not bothered
to lie beneath pigs
then go on Laura
here’s a flower for your grave

This is your posse bonus
This is your extra
This is your posse bonus
‘cause I like you
I like you
I like you




Thursday, December 15, 2011

Insatiable ~ Lily Frost

Rich man wants to find a soul
Young girl wants to be a bride
Always wanting, something's lacking
Everything seems brighter on the other side

If this waxing libertine
Ages waning, like wine
Something's waxing, something's waning
Everything seems brighter on the other side

Is it evil or divine
to want to feel sublime
by using drugs or yoga mudra
or a boss who tells you what to do
so you don't have think or be confused
about decisions anymore?

Making love without your eyes wide
limits intimate from reaching to its heights
Yin as yang and yang as yin
and future comes from what has been
and circles spin

Is it love or is it war
that keeps us wanting more?
Or is it everything combined and balanced
perfectly in simple synchronicity
defines its place in time and space
to grant you destiny?

Been awake since Thursday dawn, goes
just as easily as joy
In this random rapatation
Everything seems brighter on the other side

Is it money, is it fame
what will this life attain?
Or is it God - the last resort
before the fall into the pit of apathy
or Paris notions seamed with boring speculation
filled with trial and tribulation -
Where's inertia when you need it -
and the centrifuge defeated -
It takes all your force to relax, and be satisfied...

Insatiable
Insatiable





Saturday, December 3, 2011

When the King is Half-Undressed


The King is Half Undressed - Jellyfish

So this is where she stands at night
On this cold avenue of lights
The red and greens but mostly reds
For you he's stopping

In seeing him she knows him less
His stick is wet, she's half undressed
And all and all they're both obsessed
With so much nothing

I know it's hard for you to see
What lies behind's a mystery
If words could speak they'd mean even less
When the king is half undressed

She dots her "i's" with a smiley face
A work of art in all but taste
The fool deserves the bed he's made
Where idiots slumber

Divine she is to air this fate
A crack of smile through all this hate
Means nothing more in this nervous state
Of so much nothing

I know it's hard for you to see
The truth behind is misery
If words could speak they'd mean even less
When the king is half undressed

Blue autumns
Sunshine kisses
Hearts and flowers
And broken wishes

I know it's hard for you to see
What lies behind's a mystery
If words could speak they'd mean even less
When the king is half undressed

I know it's hard for you to see
The truth behind is misery
If words could speak they'd mean even less
When the king is half undressed


Saturday, November 12, 2011

Feedback Loops

“If You Forget Me" ― Pablo Neruda


I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.”

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Poem for Today



“Wanderers Nachtlied”

Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Vögelin schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Goethe I, 1978: 142)

“Wanderer’s Nightsong”

Above the hillside peaks
It is calm,
In the treetops
You feel
hardly a breath of air;
The little birds fall silent in the woods.
Just wait, soon
You also will rest.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Goethe I, 1978: 142)

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Never Five Minutes; or, I Still Love Monty Python

There is a kind of satirical flow that I truly believe is psychologically therapeutic for those who can process it. Some key portions of Monty Python's comedy have beamed me on for years, so I'm dipping into them today to get a boost. Warning: long post! If I miss any of your favorites, let me know in the comments.

The "Dead Parrot" sketch comes to mind whenever I hear euphemisms of death, and I rejoice to hear the sheer roll of them in service, for once, to a denied reality:
It's not pining, it's passed on! This parrot is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late parrot! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed it to the perch, it'd be pushing up the daisies! It's metabolic processes are now history! He's off the twig! He's kicked the bucket! He's shuffled off the mortal coil, rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible! This is an ex-parrot!

The song about Oliver Cromwell has completely replaced the original classical song in my mind. I think we should learn history just this way.


"Bruce's Philosophers Song" got me through my education in philosophical theology and ethics, especially when I felt overwhelmed by the big topics. I wasn't the only one who knew every word.
Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table
David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel
There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill
Plato, they say, could stick it away
Half a crate of whiskey every day
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle
Hobbes was fond of his dram
And René Descartes was a drunken fart
I drink, therefore I am
Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed
A lovely little thinker
But a bugger when he's pissed


"The Meaning of Life" had its ups and downs, which is proper, but its theme song was my pep talk for writing my dissertation:


Why are we here? What's life all about?
Is God really real, or is there some doubt?
Well, tonight, we're going to sort it all out,
For, tonight, it's 'The Meaning of Life'.

What's the point of all this hoax?
Is it the chicken and the egg time? Are we just yolks?
Or, perhaps, we're just one of God's little jokes.
Well, ça c'est 'The Meaning of Life'.

Is life just a game where we make up the rules
While we're searching for something to say,
Or are we just simply spiraling coils
Of self-replicating DN-- nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay.

What is life? What is our fate?
Is there a Heaven and Hell? Do we reincarnate?
Is mankind evolving, or is it too late?
Well, tonight, here's 'The Meaning of Life'.

For millions, this 'life' is a sad vale of tears,
Sitting 'round with really nothing to say
While the scientists say we're just simply spiraling coils
Of self-replicating DN-- nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay, nay.

So, just why-- why are we here,
And just what-- what-- what-- what do we fear?
Well, ce soir, for a change, it will all be made clear,
For this is 'The Meaning of Life'. C'est le sens de la vie.
This is 'The Meaning of Life'.

You might have missed the answer to the question:
Lady Presenter: Well, that's the end of the film. Now, here's the meaning of life.
[She is handed a gold-wrapped booklet.]
Lady Presenter: Thank you, Brigitte.
[She clears her throat, then unwraps and examines the gilt booklet.]
Lady Presenter: Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations. And, finally, here are some completely gratuitous pictures of penises to annoy the censors and to hopefully spark some sort of controversy, which, it seems, is the only way, these days, to get the jaded, video-sated public off their fucking arses and back in the sodding cinema. Family entertainment? Bollocks. What they want is filth: people doing things to each other with chainsaws during tupperware parties, babysitters being stabbed with knitting needles by gay presidential candidates, vigilante groups strangling chickens, armed bands of theatre critics exterminating mutant goats. Where's the fun in pictures? Oh, well, there we are. Here's the theme music. Goodnight.

"Monty Python and the Holy Grail" used the Arthurian legends to poke fun at the idealizations of grand myths, golden times, and power.

King Arthur: I am your king.
Peasant Woman: Well, I didn't vote for you.
King Arthur: You don't vote for kings.
Peasant Woman: Well, how'd you become king, then?
[Angelic music plays... ]
King Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king.
Dennis the Peasant: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Arthur: Be quiet!
Dennis the Peasant: You can't expect to wield supreme power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!

Bedevere: How do you know she is a witch?
Peasant: She looks like one.
[Crowd indistinctly shouts]
Bedevere: Bring her forward!
Girl: I'm not a witch.
Bedevere: But you are dressed as one...
Girl: They dressed me up like this. [Crowd murmurs]
Girl: And this isn't my nose. This is a false one.
Bedevere: [inspects the nose and confirms] Well?
Peasant: Well, we did do the nose.
Bedevere: The nose?
Peasant: And the hat. She's a witch!
Peasant Crowd: Burn her!
Bedevere: Did you dress her up like this?
Peasant Crowd: No, no, no! [beat] Yes, yes. A bit. But she's got a wart.
Bedevere: Why do you think that she is a witch?
Peasant: Well, she turned me into a newt.
[Bedevere gives him a disbelieving look]
Bedevere: A newt?
[Silence]
Peasant: Well, I got better.
Peasant Crowd: Burn her anyway!

Frenchman: You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, sons of a silly person! I blow my nose at you, so-called Ah-thoor Keeng, you and all your silly English K-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-niggits! [makes taunting gestures at them]
Sir Galahad: What a strange person.
King Arthur: Now, look here, my good man--
Frenchman: I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
Sir Galahad: Is there someone else up there we can talk to?
Frenchman: No, now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!



Bridgekeeper: Hee hee heh. [He stops Arthur, the next one to try to cross] Stop. What... is your name?
King Arthur: It is 'Arthur', King of the Britons.
Bridgekeeper: What... is your quest?
King Arthur: To seek the Holy Grail.
Bridgekeeper: What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
King Arthur: What do you mean? An African or a European swallow?
Bridgekeeper: Huh? I... I don't know that. [he is thrown over as well] AUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHH!!

Better keep the Holy Hand Grenade handy.



My favorite, the film "Life of Bryan," was chock-full of nuggets that helped me in a thousand ways. Don't miss this stunning discussion about the movie, in which the church doesn't get it.

A great many contemporary preachers remind me of these:
Blood and Thunder Prophet: [screaming] ... and the bezan shall be huge and black, and the eyes thereof red with the blood of living creatures, and the whore of Babylon shall ride forth on a three-headed serpent, and throughout the lands, there will be a great rubbing of parts. Yeeah...
False Prophet: [yelling] ... for the demon shall bear a nine-bladed sword. NINE-bladed! Not two or five or seven, but NINE, which he will wield on all wretched sinners, sinners just like you, sir, there, and the horns shall be on the head, with which he will...
Boring Prophet: [in a dreary voice] ...there shall, in that time, be rumors of things going astray, errrm, and there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are, and nobody will really know where lieth those little things wi - with the sort of raffia work base that has an attachment. At this time, a friend shall lose his friend's hammer and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before, about eight o'clock. Yea, it is written in the book of Cyril that...

The misguided literalism and cruelty of "communities of love" were permanently put in their proper psychological space with the mantra "No one is to stone anyone until I blow this whistle!", from the stoning scene. All of the exquisite ironies of people who just don't see the most important things are illustrated in Bryan's speech from the window:

Brian: No, no. Please, please please listen. I've got one or two things to say.
The Crowd: Tell us! Tell us both of them!
Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong. You don't need to follow me. You don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for yourselves! You're all individuals!
The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals!
Brian: You're all different!
The Crowd: Yes! We're all different!
Man in crowd: I'm not...
Man in crowd: Shhh!
Brian: You've all got to work it out for yourselves.
The Crowd: Yes! We've got to work it out for ourselves!
Brian: Exactly!
The Crowd: Tell us more!
Brian: No! That's the point! Don't let anyone tell you what to do! Otherwise - Ow! Ow! !

The conversation in the crowd at the Sermon on the Mount reminds me of all the frustrating discussion of scripture among those who clearly have no ears to hear, in so many ways:

Spectator: I think it was "Blessed are the cheesemakers".
Mrs. Gregory: Aha, what's so special about the cheesemakers?
Gregory: Well, obviously it's not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.

The petty squabbles of in-groups - whether political, academic or religious - were taken much less seriously in the light of the discussion by the revolutionaries in the amphitheater:



Bryan's comrades maintain formal ritual while evolving their message through this farewell proclamation at his crucifixion:

Reg: [reading prepared statement] "We, the People's Front of Judea, brackets, official, end brackets, do hereby convey our sincere fraternal and sisterly greetings to you, Brian, on this, the occasion of your martyrdom."
Brian: What??
Reg: "Your death will stand as a landmark in the continuing struggle to liberate the parent land from the hands of the Roman imperialist aggressors, excluding those concerned with drainage, medicine, roads, housing, education, viniculture and any other Romans contributing to the welfare of Jews of both sexes, and hermaphrodites..."

Because I hold a tender place in my heart for any mention of Jehovah's Witnesses, I even liked the skit "Michael Ellis" although the cultural references otherwise may have been lost on me:
Mother: What have you got now?
Chris: I bought an ant, mother.
Mother: What d'you want one of them for! I'm not going to clean it out. You said you'd clean the tiger out, but do you? No, I suppose you've lost interest in it now. Now it'll be ant ant ant for a couple of days, then all of a sudden, 'oh, mum, I've bought a sloth' or some other odd-toed ungulate like a tapir.
Chris: It's really different this time, mum. I'm really going to look after this ant.
Mother: That's what you said about the sperm whale... now your papa's having to use it as a garage.
Chris: Well, you didn't feed it properly.
Mother: Where are we going to get 44 tons of plankton from every morning? Your dad was dead vexed about that. They thought he was mad in the deli.
Chris: Well at least he's got a free garage.
Mother: That's no good to him... his Hillman smells all fishy. [growl from the tiger] Oh blimey, that's the tiger. He'll want his mandies.
Chris: Are you giving that tiger drugs?
Mother: 'Course I'm giving it drugs!
Chris: It's illegal.
Mother: You try telling that to the tiger.
Chris: I think it's dangerous.
Mother: Listen, before he started fixing, he used to get through four Jehovah's witnesses a day. And he used to eat all of them, except the pamphlets.
Chris: Well, he's not dim.

Speaking of God, remember that if you believe that all things are created, things can get mysterious. Here's just one way:

All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom.
He made their horrid wings.
All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.
Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid--
Who made the spikey urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did!
All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.
Amen.

And, don't forget, every sperm is sacred.


"The Galaxy Song" is still one of my best wards against depression.


Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

Last, because it's been resurrected for me within the last couple of years, the inherent ironies of The Argument Clinic have made me laugh and sigh on multiple occasions.

After all, it's never five minutes just now.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Sister Moon

Sister Moon, Thomas Hellman

Just finished singing it once again...

Sister Moon
Skip across the sky
I can see your reflection
In the corner of my baby's eye

Sister Moon
You never never let me be
When I turn my eyes away
You come and find me

I saw you echo by the sea
To the middle of the water
You were calling me

And through the branches of those
Naked winter trees
I thought I heard you singing
A melody

Sister Moon
Sing that song for me
I've been dreaming of that melody
That melody means everything to me

Sister Moon
Skip across the sky
I can see your reflection
In the corner of my baby's eye

Sister Moon
You never never let me be
When I turn my eyes away
You come and find me

I'll always trust you
Follow in my madness
And let me in the silence
Of your melody


A dear friend's blessing

"May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you need to be. May you dwell in possibility. May you use the gifts that you have received and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, laugh, and love."
~ by Barbara Werden

Friday, July 15, 2011

Ocean Sky

The photographer is Alex Cherney.

This time lapse video is the result of almost 1.5 years of work, 31 hours of taking images during six nights on Southern Ocean Coast in Australia. Ocean Sky was awarded the overall winner prize at STARMUS astrophotography competition.
The Soundtrack is by Redmann

Ocean Sky from Alex Cherney on Vimeo.


(hat tip to Karina)

Monday, July 4, 2011

Feeling my way through the dark

Through the Dark - K.T. Tunstall



As I walk away
I look over my shoulder
To see what I'm leaving behind
Pieces of puzzles and
Wishes on eyelashes fail

Ohhhhhhh how do I show
all the love inside my heart
Well this is all new
And I'm feeling my way
through the dark

Well I used to talk
With honest conviction
Of how I predicted my world
I'm gonna leave it to stargazers
Tell me what your telescope says

Ohhhhhh what is in store
for me now, it's coming apart
I know that it's true
'cause I'm feeling my way
through the dark

Try to find a light on somewhere
Try to find a light on somewhere
I'm finding I'm falling in love
with the dark over here

Ohhhhhh what do I know
I don't care where I start
For my troubles are few
As I'm feeling my way
through the dark
through the dark

I'm feeling my way
through the dark

Good morning, mister sunshine

Lonely Days - Bee Gees



Good morning, mister sunshine, you brighten up my day
Come sit beside me in your way
I see you every morning outside the restaurants
The music plays so nonchalant

Lonely days, lonely nights, where would I be without my woman?
Lonely days, lonely nights, where would I be without my woman?
Lonely days, lonely nights, where would I be without my woman?
Lonely days, lonely nights, where would I be without my woman?
Lonely days, lonely nights, where would I be without my woman?

Good morning, mister sunshine, you brighten up my day
Come sit beside me in your way

Lonely days, lonely nights, where would I be without my woman?
Lonely days, lonely nights, where would I be without my woman?
Lonely days, lonely nights, where would I be without my woman?
Lonely days, lonely nights, where would I be without my woman?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, lonely days, lonely nights



In the moment of the meantime

Venice Queen - Red Hot Chili Peppers



Does it go from east to west - yaw
Body free and a body less - yaw
Come again just to start afresh and
Once again to find a home
In the moment of the meantime

Dropping in coming through the mesh - yaw
Checking in just to get it blessed - yaw
Hard to leave when it's picturesque and
Find a form that's free the roam
Where you come from
Where you going
Where you come from
Where you going

Do it all then it all again - yaw
Make it up and you make a friend - yaw
Paddle on just around the bend and
Find a place where you can see
All the mamas and the papas

Take a chance on a recommend - yaw
Hard as hell just to comprehend - yaw
Disbelief that I do suspend - yaw
Easy now to find a breeze and
Where you come from
Where you going
Where you come from
Where you going

We all want to tell her
Tell her that we love her
Venice gets a queen
Best I've ever seen
We all want to kiss her
Tell her that we miss her
Venice gets a queen
Best I've ever

I know you said you don't believe
In god do you still disagree
Now that it's time for you to leave
G.L.O.R.I.A is love my friend
my friend my friend

Your stylish mess of silver hair
A woman of your kind is rare
Your uniform returns to air
G.L.O.R.I.A is love my friend
my friend my friend

And now it's time for you to go
You taught me most of what I know
Where would I be without you Glo
G.L.O.R.I.A is love my friend
my friend my friend

I see you standing by the sea
The waves you made will always be
A kiss goodbye before you leave
G.L.O.R.I.A is love my friend
my friend my friend

Weil ich dich liebe

Weil ich dich liebe - Westernhagen



Die Wüste war heiß die Berge warn hoch
das Wasser war tief und ich fand dich doch
ich habe dir geschworen dass du mir nicht entkommst
du bist für mich geboren ich lebe nicht umsonst

Bin kein Rockefeller und bin auch kein Beau
ich kann auch nicht treu sein und ich lüg sowieso
ich habe dir geschworen bei dir wird's anders sein
du bist für mich geboren bist meine Ewigkeit

Weil ich dich liebe noch immer und mehr
weil ich dich brauche ich brauch dich so sehr
ich habe Sehnsucht ich verzehr mich nach dir
verzeih mir bleib bei mir

Nimm mich in die Arme sieh mir ins Gesicht
versuch mir zu sagen ich liebe dich nicht
es wird dir nicht gelingen der Preis wäre zu hoch
du bist für mich geboren du wirst mich nie mehr los

Weil ich dich liebe noch immer und mehr
weil ich dich brauche ich brauch dich so sehr
ich habe Sehnsucht ich verzehr mich nach dir
verzeih mir bleib bei mir

Weil ich dich liebe noch immer und mehr
weil ich dich brauche ich brauch dich so sehr
ich habe Sehnsucht ich verzehr mich nach dir
verzeih mir bleib bei mir – weil ich dich liebe

Love is the answer and you know that for sure

John Lennon - Mind Games

We're playing those mind games together
Pushing the barriers planting seeds
Playing the mind guerrilla
Chanting the Mantra peace on earth
We all been playing those mind games forever
Some kinda druid dudes lifting the veil
Doing the mind guerrilla
Some call it magic the search for the grail

Love is the answer and you know that for sure
Love is a flower you got to let it grow

So keep on playing those mind games together
Faith in the future out of the now
You just can't beat on those mind guerrillas
Absolute elsewhere in the stones of your mind
Yeah we're playing those mind games together
Projecting our images in space and in time

Yes is the answer and you know that for sure
Yes is surrender you got to let it go

So keep on playing those mind games together
Doing the ritual dance in the sun
Millions of mind guerrillas
Putting their soul power to the karmic wheel
Keep on playing those mind games together
Raising the spirit of peace and love
(I want you to make love, not war
I know you've heard it before)

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Divine crickets



The angelic chorus you hear accompanying the sound of the crickets is NOT a synthesizer or a chorus singing. It's the crickets themselves (slowed down) creating the effect. Really an amazing thing they've accomplished here.

This recording is an extended digitally remixed and mastered version taken from the original 1992 recording entitled "Ballad of the Twisted Hair" from the album "Medicine Songs" by David Carson and Little Wolf Band produced by Jim Wilson and released on Raven Records.

This unusual recording contains two tracks:

1. the natural sound of crickets chirping
2. the sound of the crickets slowed down to match and mirror the length of the average lifespan of a human being.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Napoli Time Lapse Rainbow

Oh, how I wish I was in Naples!

A spectacular stroke of luck meets a lucky camera placement in Italy.

Rainbow Time Lapse - Napoli from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Singin' Trouble

"Trouble" by Over the Rhine



If you came to make some trouble
Better make it good
Your sexy cocktail hour stubble
Is doing what it should

Looks may be sweet and subtle
I think it’s trouble honey
I think it’s good
If you came to make trouble
Make me a double honey
I think it’s good

Novices have expectations
‘Cause they think they should
Experts have their revelations
Like they knew they would
What may seem complicated
Is overstated, downright misunderstood
Love will not be outdated
Maybe placated, but it’s got to be good

We’re so precarious with semantics
I think this could be trouble
I think it’s trouble honey
I think it’s good
If you came to make trouble
Make me a double honey
I think it’s good

What may seem complicated
Is overstated downright misunderstood
Love will not be outdated
Maybe placated but it’s got to be good
We’re far too serious
I think we could be
Such nefarious pyromantics

I think this could be trouble
I think it’s trouble honey
I think it’s good
If you came to make trouble
Make me a double honey
I think it’s good
I think it’s good
I think it’s good
I think it’s good

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Nine Million Bicycles in Beijing

Nine Million Bicycles by Katie Melua

Thanks to Craig for introducing me to the song, and to Roland for posting it on Facebook today!


There are nine million bicycles in Beijing
That's a fact
It's a thing we can't deny
Like the fact that I will love you till I die

We are twelve billion light years from the edge
That's a guess
No-one can ever say it's true
But I know that I will always be with you

I'm warmed by the fire of your love everyday
So don't call me a liar
Just believe everything that I say

There are 6 billion people in the world
More or less
And it makes me feel quite small
But you're the one I love the most of all

We're high on a wire
With the world in our sight
And I'll never tire
Of the love that you give me every night

There are nine million bicycles in Beijing
That's a fact
It's a thing we can't deny
Like the fact that I will love you till I die

And there are nine million bicycles in Beijing
And you know that I will love you till I die

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Sound-worlds of Love

Is this really love or only a misleading appearance?
Is this really love or just a special effect?

I don't know, but it certainly *sounds* like love. Purrrrrr....

"Est-ce bien l'amour," Jean-Louis Murat



Haussant mon vol
Bien au-delà des prairies
Chantant "Je meurs Aime-moi"

L'âme du monde
Tant aperçue à Paris
Me dit "mais que faites-vous là »

Est-ce bien l'amour
Ou n'est-ce qu'un effet trompeur
Qui peut le dire
Ici-bas
Est-ce bien l'amour
Ou n'est-ce qu'un effet trompeur
On dit "Je t'aime"
Mais voilà

Quel est cet œuf
Qui va fendant les nuages
Qu'on trouve au buisson d'orties

D'un cœur léger
On réclame le partage
Dans la profondeur du puits

Est-ce bien l'amour
Ou n'est-ce qu'un effet trompeur
Qui peut le dire
Ici-bas
Est-ce bien l'amour
Ou n'est-ce qu'un effet trompeur
On dit "Je t'aime"
Mais voilà

Devers sa dame
Mirant l'épine fleurie
On énumère les regrets
Serré de lierre
On s'échappe du taillis
D'un coup d'éperon doré

Est-ce bien l'amour
Ou n'est-ce qu'un effet trompeur
Qui peut le dire
Ici-bas
Est-ce bien l'amour
Ou n'est-ce qu'un effet trompeur
On dit "Je t'aime"
Mais voilà

Est-ce bien l'amour
Ou n'est-ce qu'un effet trompeur
Qui peut le dire
Ici-bas
Est-ce bien l'amour
Ou n'est-ce qu'un effet trompeur
On dit "Je t'aime"
Mais voilà




Monday, May 30, 2011

Knowledge

"The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone." ~ George Eliot

Sunday, May 22, 2011

The Word - LOVE

"The Word" by the Beatles (Rubber Soul)

Say the WORD - and you'll be free
Say the WORD - and be like me
Say the WORD - I'm thinking of
Have you heard? - the word is LOVE
It's so fine
It's sunshine
It's the WORD - LOVE

In the beginning I misunderstood
But now I've got it, the word is good

Spread the WORD - and you'll be free
Spread the WORD - and be like be
Spread the WORD - I'm thinking of
Have you heard? - the word is LOVE
It's so fine
It's sunshine
It's the WORD - LOVE

Everywhere I go I hear it said
In the good and bad books that I have read

Give the WORD - a chance to say
That the WORD - is just the way
It's the WORD - I'm thinking of
And the ONLY word is LOVE
It's so fine
It's sunshine
It's the WORD - LOVE

Now that I know what I feel must be right
I'm here to show everybody the light

Say the WORD - and you'll be free
Say the WORD - and be like me
Say the WORD - I'm thinking of
Have you heard? - the word is LOVE
It's so fine
It's sunshine
It's the WORD - LOVE


Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Sadness - Those Were the Days, My Friend

Those Were the Days - Mary Hopkin



Once upon a time there was a tavern
Where we used to raise a glass or two
Remember how we laughed away the hours
And dreamed of all the great things we would do

Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way

La la la la la la
La la la la la la
La la la la, la la la la la la la

Then the busy years went rushing by us
We lost our starry notions on the way
If by chance I´d see you in the tavern
We'd smile at one another and we'd say

Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose

La la la la la la
La la la la la la
La la la la, la la la la la la la

Just tonight I stood before the tavern
Nothing seemed the way it used to be
In the glass I saw a strange reflection
Was that lonely woman really me

Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days

La la la la la la
La la la la la la
La la la la, la la la la la la la

La la la la la la
La la la la la la
La la la la, la la la la la la la

Through the door there came familiar laughter
I saw your face and heard you call my name
Oh my friend we're older but no wiser
For in our hearts the dreams are still the same

Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days

La la la la la la
La la la la la la
La la la la, la la la la la la la

Sunday, May 15, 2011

You're the Top!

At words poetic, I'm so pathetic
That I always have found it best,
Instead of getting 'em off my chest,
To let 'em rest - unexpressed,
I hate parading my serenading
As I'll probably miss a bar,
But if this ditty is not so pretty
At least it'll tell you how great you are.

You're the top, you're the Colosseum,
You're the top, you're the Louvre Museum,
You're a melody from a symphony by Strauss,
You're a Bendel bonnet, a Shakespeare sonnet, you're Mickey Mouse!

You're the Nile, you're the Tower of Pisa,
You're the smile on the Mona Lisa,
I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop,
But if baby I'm the bottom, you're the top.



Your words poetic are not pathetic.
On the other hand, babe, you shine,
And I can feel after every line
A thrill divine down my spine.
Now gifted humans like Vincent Youmans
Might think that your song is bad,
But I got a notion I'll second the motion
And this is what I'm going to add

You're the top, you're Mahatma Gandhi,
You're the top, you're Napoleon Brandy,
You're the purple light Of a summer night in Spain,
You're the National Gallery, you're Garbo's salary,
You're cellophane!

You're sublime, you're turkey dinner,
You're the time, the time of a Derby winner
I'm a toy balloon that’s fated soon to pop
But if, baby, I'm the bottom, you're the top!

You're the top, you're an Arrow collar.
You're the top, you're a Coolidge dollar.
You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire.
You're an O'Neill drama, you're Whistler's mama, you're Camembert!

You're a rose; you're Inferno's Dante,
You're the nose of the great Durante.
I'm just in the way, as the French would say 'de trop'
But if, baby, I'm the bottom,
You're the top.

You're the top, you're a dance in Bali.
You're the top, you're a hot tamale.
You're an angel, you, simply too, too, too diveen,
You're a Boticcelli, you're Keats, you're Shelly, You're Ovaltine!

You're a boom, you're the dam at Boulder,
You're the moon, over Mae West's shoulder,
I'm the nominee of the G.O.P. - or GOP!
But if, baby, I'm the bottom, you're the top!

You're the top, you're a Waldorf salad.
You're the top, you're a Berlin ballad.
You're the boats that glide on the sleepy Zuider Zee,
You're an old Dutch master, you're Lady Astor, you're Pepsodent!

You're romance, you're the steppes of Russia,
You're the pants on a Roxy usher.
I'm a lazy lout, that's just about to stop,
But if baby, I'm the bottom, you're the top.

I forgot how funny this is.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Anaïs Nin


Anaïs Nin - 1903–1977

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."

"I only believe in fire. Life. Fire. Being myself on fire I set others on fire. Never death. Fire and life. Les Jeux."

"I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman."

"It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it."

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."

"We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations."

"I looked with chameleon eyes upon the changing face of the world, looked with anonymous vision upon my uncompleted self."

"It takes courage to push yourself to places you have never been before... to test yout limits... to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

"No life, no history, no human being, no event is without meaning. But it takes a certain training to penetrate the surface and we mistake superficiality for realism."

"The body is an instrument which only gives off music when it is used as a body. Always an orchestra, and just as music traverses walls, so sensuality traverses the body and reaches up to ecstasy."

"Action without meaning becomes animal. The dream without action is equally destructive."

"Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living."

"Permit yourself to flow and overflow. Allow for the rise in temperature and all the expansions and intensifications. Something is always born of excess."

"Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them."

"The important task of literature is to free man, not to censor him, and that is why Puritanism was the most destructive and evil force which ever oppressed people and their literature: it created hypocrisy, perversion, fears, sterility."

"The important thing is to set the passions free."

"The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery. I have no fear of clarity."

"I prefer by far the warmth and softness to mere brilliancy and coldness. Some people remind me of sharp dazzling diamonds. Valuable but lifeless and loveless. Others, of the simplest field flowers, with hearts full of dew and with all the tints of celestial beauty reflected in their modest petals."

"Three or four threads may be agitated, like telegraph wires, at the same time, and if I were to tap them all I would reveal such a mixture of innocence and duplicity, generosity and calculation, fear and courage, I cannot tell the whole truth simply because I would have to write four journals at once."

"Every difficult situation into which you are sometimes thrown has some kind of opening somewhere, even if it is only by way of the dream."

"I cannot live without seeing him. It is a hunger, an unbearable hunger. I rushed to him today. It is like touching fire. He makes me terribly happy."

"...she lived now with all herself, this body so long ignored. She burned at last completely and living was revealed to her in a thousand ways. She melted into the world, into dreams, into flesh, into moist desires. Before she gave only the cold radiation of her thought-now she gave her burning flesh. She was woman."

"And to walk into chaos with a passion for crystallization does not imply to dispel the chaos. It means to discover more and more chaos, to descend further, to discover one cave underneath another, to become aware of the impossibility to seize."

"The truly faithless one is the one who makes love to only a fraction of you. And denies the rest."

"Stories do not end."

"To think of him in the middle of the day lifts me out of ordinary living."

"I am like a winged creature who is too rarely allowed to use its wings. Ecstasies do not occur often enough."

"For indeed my life is a perpetual question mark -- my thirst for books, my observations of people, all tend to satisfy a great, overwhelming desire to know, to understand, to find an answer to a million questions. And gradually the answers are revealed, many things are explained, and above all, many things are given names and described, and my restlessness is subdued. Then I become an exclamatory person, clapping my hands to the immense surprises the world holds for me, and falling from one ecstasy into another. I have the habit of peeping and prying and listening and seeking -- passionate curiosity and expectation. But I have also the habit of being surprised, the habit of being filled with wonder and satisfaction each time I stumble on some wondrous thing. The first habit could make me a philosopher or a cynic or perhaps a humorist. But the other habit destroys all the delicate foundations, and I find each day that I am still... only a Woman!"

"All those who try to unveil the mysteries always have tragic lives. At the end they are always punished."

"Coming near him like a ballet dancer she took a leap towards him, and he, frightened by her vehemence, and fearing that she would crash against him, instinctively became absolutely rigid, and she felt herself embracing a statue."

"For you and for me the highest moment, the keenest joy, is not when our minds dominate but when we lose our minds, and you and I both lose it in the same way, through love."

"Only the united beat of sex and heart together can create ecstasy."

"The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself."

"In the infinite there is no impasse."

"Do not seek the because - in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions."

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Choice

Where choice begins, Paradise ends, innocence ends, for what is Paradise but the absence of any need to choose this action? ~ Arthur Miller
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices. ~ Theodor Adorno
From each as they choose, to each as they are chosen. ~ Robert Nozick
I'll walk where my own nature would be leading: It vexes me to choose another guide. ~ Emily Bronte
We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them. ~ Khalil Gibran
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. ~ Viktor E. Frankl
Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. ~ Viktor E. Frankl
Guess, if you can, and choose, if you dare. ~ Pierre Corneille
Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself. ~ Walter Anderson
I've never thought of my characters as being sad. On the contrary, they are full of life. They didn't choose tragedy. Tragedy chose them. ~ Juliette Binoche
No matter how sad we might be, the universe is still planning our happiness. We can choose happiness in any moment we wish. ~ Marianne Williamson
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who'll decide where to go. ~ Dr. Seuss
We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours. ~ Dag Hammarskjold
Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change. ~ Stephen Covey
I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman. ~ Anais Nin

Monday, May 9, 2011

Love Measures

"Then do we still need our soul mate? Oh, yes, I say, because this is the bed through which the river of our life flows from another transcendental reality, this is the infinite on which the horizon of our heart rests in other dreams or transcendental realities." ~ Sorin Cerin

"The measure of love is love without measure." ~ Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

"In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities." ~ Janos Arnay

"Each moment of a happy lover's hour is worth an age of dull and common life." ~ Aphra Behn

"Make me immortal with a kiss." ~ Christopher Marlowe

"Sometimes your nearness takes my breath away; and all the things I want to say can find no voice. Then, in silence, I can only hope my eyes will speak my heart." ~ Robert Sexton

"Acting on your heart's instructions means abandoning all those careful strategies for avoiding rejection and bolting toward the fertile, gorgeous jungle of human imagination and possibility." ~ Martha Beck

"Any real ecstasy is a sign you are moving in the right direction." ~ St. Teresa of Avila

"Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly." ~ Rose Franken

"The new moon stirs pangs of love." ~ Vidyapati

"The lips of the one I love are my perpetual pleasure..." ~ Hafiz

"Eros seizes and shakes my very soul
like the wind on the mountain
shaking ancient oaks." ~ Sappho

"Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.
Pinned by the sun between solstice
and equinox, drowsy and tangled together." ~ Pablo Neruda

"The deeper that sorrow carves
into your being, the more joy
you can contain." ~ Kahlil Gibran

"How can I keep my soul in me, so that it doesn't touch your soul?
How can I raise it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote lost objects,
in some dark and silent place that doesn't resonate
when our depths resound." ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Love is an infinite sky! ~ Osho

STRAWBERRIES

There were never strawberries
like the ones we had
that sultry afternoon
sitting on the step
of the open French window
facing each other
your knees held in mine
the blue plates in our laps
the strawberries glistening
in the hot sunlight
we dipped them in sugar
looking at each other
not hurrying the feast
for one to come
the empty plates
laid on the stone together
with the two forks crossed
and I bent towards you
sweet in that air
in my arms
abandoned like a child
from your eager mouth
the taste of strawberries
in my memory
lean back again
let me love you
let the sun beat
on our forgetfulness
one hour of all
the heat intense

and summer lightning
on the Kilpatrick hills

let the storm wash the plates

~ Edwin Morgan

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Long hot soak

Here's one of my favorites, but I do this so seldom. It's easy to forget, but tonight was a wonderful reminder.

A 30-minute bath, with epsom salts imbued with lavender oil. The salts ease my tired body, and the aroma of the lavender relaxes and calms. Condition the hair at the same time, and get a longer-than-usual beauty treatment.

What a fantastic soak! All my muscles are relaxed. I'm all warm and clean and, embraced by my softest pjs, I feel so deliciously comfty now.

Sweet, sweet, sweet dreams.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Love Letters

To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written. ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau

Like my dream of holding hands on a ferris wheel, I hold dear the idea of the love letter. Here are some excerpts of good ones, of which my favorite is the last.

To Peter Abelard: I have your picture in my room. I never pass by it without stopping to look at it; and yet when you were present with me, I scare ever cast my eyes upon it. If a picture which is but a mute representation of an object can give such pleasure, what cannot letters inspire? They have souls, they can speak, they have in them all that force which expresses the transport of the heart; they have all the fire of our passions.... ~ Heloise

To Fanny Brawne: I cannot exist without you - I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again - my life seems to stop there - I see no further. You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I were dissolving ....I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion - I have shudder'd at it - I shudder no more - I could be martyr'd for my religion - love is my religion - I could die for that - I could die for you. My creed is love and you are its only tenet - you have ravish'd me away by a power I cannot resist. ~ John Keats

Twenty times during the day, I ask myself where you are; judge how strong the illusion is, and how cruel it is to see it vanish. When I go to bed, I do not fail to make room for you; I push myself quite close to the wall and leave a great empty space in my small bed. This movement is mechanical, these thoughts are involuntary. Ah! how one accustoms oneself to happiness.

Alas! one only knows it well when one has lost it, and I'm sure we have only learnt to appreciate how necessary we are to each other, since the thunderbolt has parted us. The source of our tears has not dried up, dear Sophie; we cannot become healed; we have enough in our hearts to love always, and, because of that, enough to weep always. ~ Gabriel (Count Gabriel Honore de Mirbeau, 1790)

There would have been the making of an accomplished flirt in me, because my lucidity shows me each move of the game - but that, in the same instant, a reaction of contempt makes me sweep all the counters off the board and cry out: - "Take them all - I don't want to win - I want to lose everything to you!" ~ Edith Wharton, an American novelist to W Morton Fullerton, an American journalist, June 8, 1908

Beware, Josephine; one fine night the doors will be broken down and there I shall be. In truth, I am worried, my love, to have no news from you; write me a four page letter instantly made up from those delightful words which fill my heart with emotion and joy. I hope to hold you in my arms before long, when I shall lavish upon you a million kisses, burning as the equatorial sun. ~ Napolean Bonaparte, 1797

July 24, 1940 - I cannot get that beautiful afternoon out of my head, above me where I lay the grass was silhouetted against the blue of the heavens, small clouds were rushing past as the wind drove them on an endless journey. Then close to me was the most lovely of all, your soft hair against my cheek, your kisses so cool and unearthly and my happiness was so great. ~ Julia Lee-Booker to Lieut. Pat McSwiney, a British soldier.

February 10, 1867 - ...and now, love, you with the warm heart and loving eyes, whose picture I kissed last night and whose lips I so often kiss in my dreams, whose love enriches me so bountifully with all pleasant memories and sweet anticipations, whose encircling arms shield me from so much evil and harm, whose caresses are so dear and so longed for awake and in slumber, making my heart beat faster, my flesh tremble and my brain giddy with delight, - whose feet I kiss and whose knees I embrace as a devotee kisses and embraces those of his idol, - my darling whose home is in my arms and whose resting place my bosom, who first came to them as a frightened bird but now loves to linger there till long after the midnight chimes have uttered their warning, - my life, with your generous soul, my heart's keeper and my true lover, - Good night: a good night and a fair one to thy sleeping eyes and wearied limb, the precursor of many bright, beautiful mornings when my kisses shall waken thee and my love shall greet thee. ~ Lyman (Lyman Hodge, an American merchant to Mary Granger, his fiancee).

December 31, 1839 - I send you some allumettes (lampshades) wherewith to kindle the taper. There are very few but my second finger could no longer perform extra duty. These will serve till the wounded one be healed, however. How beautiful is it to provide even this slightest convenience for you, dearest! I cannot tell you how much I love you, in this back-handed style. My love is not in this attitude,-- it rather bends forward to meet you.

What a year has been to us! My definition of Beauty is, that it is love, and therefore includes both truth and good. But those only who love as we do can feel the significance and force of this.

My ideas will not flow in these crooked strokes. God be with you. I am very well, and have walked far in Danvers this cold morning. I am full of the glory of the day. God bless you this night of the old year. It has proved the year of our nativity. Has not the old earth passed away from us?--are not all things new? ~ Your Sophie (to Nathaniel Hawthorne)

I will cover you with love when next I see you, with caresses, with ecstasy. I want to gorge you with all the joys of the flesh, so that you faint and die. I want you to be amazed by me, and to confess to yourself that you had never even dreamed of such transports…

When you are old, I want you to recall those few hours, I want your dry bones to quiver with joy when you think of them. ~ Gustave Flaubert


September 1, 1834 - But let me have this letter, containing nothing but your love; and tell me that you give me your lips, your hair, all that face that I have possessed, and tell me that we embrace - you and I! O God, O God, when I think of it, my throat closes, my sight is troubled; my knees fail, ah, it is horrible to die, it is also horrible to love like this! What longing, what longing I have for you! I beg you to let me have the letter I ask. I am dying. Farewell. ~ Alfred de Musset, French Poet, to Amantine Aurore Dudevant, French writer.

25 August, 1819 - My dearest Teresa, I have read this book in your garden;--my love, you were absent, or else I could not have read it. It is a favourite book of yours, and the writer was a friend of mine. You will not understand these English words, and others will not understand them,--which is the reason I have not scrawled them in Italian. But you will recognize the handwriting of him who passionately loved you, and you will divine that, over a book which was yours, he could only think of love.

In that word, beautiful in all languages, but most so in yours--Amor mio--is comprised my existence here and hereafter. I feel I exist here, and I feel I shall exist hereafter,--to what purpose you will decide; my destiny rests with you, and you are a woman, eighteen years of age, and two out of a convent. I love you, and you love me,--at least, you say so, and act as if you did so, which last is a great consolation in all events.

But I more than love you, and cannot cease to love you. Think of me, sometimes, when the Alps and ocean divide us, --but they never will, unless you wish it. ~ Lord Byron


May 12, 1869 - Out of the depths of my happy heart wells a great tide of love and prayer for this priceless treasure that is confided to my life-long keeping.

You cannot see its intangible waves as they flow towards you, darling, but in these lines you will hear, as it were, the distant beating of the surf.
~ Mark Twain to Olivia Langdon, his future wife.

Christ Church, Oxford, October 28, 1876

My Dearest Gertrude:

You will be sorry, and surprised, and puzzled, to hear what a queer illness I have had ever since you went. I sent for the doctor, and said, "Give me some medicine, for I'm tired."
He said, "Nonsense and stuff! You don't want medicine: go to bed!"

I said, "No; it isn't the sort of tiredness that wants bed. I'm tired in the face."

He looked a little grave, and said, "Oh, it's your nose that's tired: a person often talks too much when he thinks he knows a great deal."
I said, "No, it isn't the nose. Perhaps it's the hair."
Then he looked rather grave, and said, "Now I understand: you've been playing too many hairs on the pianoforte."

"No, indeed I haven't!" I said, "and it isn't exactly the hair: it's more about the nose and chin."
Then he looked a good deal graver, and said, "Have you been walking much on your chin lately?"
I said, "No."
"Well!" he said, "it puzzles me very much.

Do you think it's in the lips?"
"Of course!" I said. "That's exactly what it is!"

Then he looked very grave indeed, and said, "I think you must have been giving too many kisses."
"Well," I said, "I did give one kiss to a baby child, a little friend of mine."

"Think again," he said; "are you sure it was only one?" I thought again, and said, "Perhaps it was eleven times."
Then the doctor said, "You must not give her any more till your lips are quite rested again."

"But what am I to do?" I said, "because you see, I owe her a hundred and eighty-two more."
Then he looked so grave that tears ran down his cheeks, and he said, "You may send them to her in a box."

Then I remembered a little box that I once bought at Dover, and thought I would someday give it to some little girl or other. So I have packed them all in it very carefully. Tell me if they come safe or if any are lost on the way." ~ Lewis Carroll

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Hold Me

Surrendering to the cosmos...


Hold Me - by Happy Rhodes



Lifetimes, I wait to be strong
But it's cool with you around
Your hands are just big enough
To keep me off the ground

With all the confidence I have
It seems I could go forever
But forever has no rest-stops
And my endurance sometimes fails

Hold me, hold me, hold me in your arms
Can you tell me how I'm gonna make it

Facades can be tricky things
No matter the mortar
Life has its own abrasives
To wear them down before long

I am so big in my head
It's hard not to feel let down
What to do, what to do now that I know
Oh how really scared I am

Hold me, hold me, hold me in your arms
Can you tell me how I'm gonna make it

Hold me, hold me, hold me in your arms
Can you tell me how I'm gonna make it

Hold me, hold me, hold me in your arms
Can you tell me how I'm gonna make it

Hold me, hold me, hold me in your arms
Can you tell me how I'm gonna make it

Hold me, hold me, hold me in your arms
Can you tell me how I'm gonna make it

Electric Feel: My birthday reading

My wise and dear friend Nessa did a birthday reading for me, using her very fun method of the musical tarot. She created a list of songs, each assigned to a card of the Motherpeace deck. She has chosen each song for its deep resonance with the meaning of the card. Then.... shuffle!

I'm glad she didn't use the traditional deck. The Tower card can have some scary readings sometimes. This is a powerful reading, and I look forward to seeing how it may have played out when I look back next year.

MotherPeace Card: The Tower
MotherPeace Card Meaning: Radical Shift, Illumination



It's going to be a shifting type of year. I color that a good thing, a necessary thing. We all need a bit of shake, rattle and roll now and again to get back to basics. We need to remember that even the little jolts have the ability to inform us and change our world, our perspectives. Plugging in, that is ...connecting, is important. We can rattle the lightening bolts all we wish, but without connections - Electricity does not travel. We each have our own special brand of Electricity/ Energy.... we affect and inform others. Throughout this year, keep this idea in mind. Observe-Integrate-Disseminate - Share your Electric Feel.

Song: Electric Feel
Artist: MGMT

All along the western front
People line up to receive.
She got the power in her hand
To shock you like you won't believe.
Saw her in the amazon
With the voltage running through her skin
Standing there with nothing on
She gonna teach me how to swim

I said ooh girl
Shock me like an electric eel
Baby girl
Turn me on with your electric feel

I said ooh girl
Shock me like an electric eel
Baby girl
Turn me on with your electric feel

All along the eastern shore
Put your circuits in the sea
This is what the world is for
Making electricity
You can feel it in your mind
Oh you can do it all the time
Plug it in and change the world
You are my electric girl.

I said ooh girl
Shock me like an electric eel
Baby girl
Turn me on with your electric feel

I said ooh girl
Shock me like an electric eel
Baby girl
Turn me on with your electric feel

Do what you feel now
Electric feel now



Sunday, April 10, 2011

Raise the Veil

Raise the Veil, by Lily Frost

Now here I sit in a couch by the fire
wondering where is the fruit tree
I am just simply an old tired poet
waiting for the apple to drop tonight

Is Leonard Cohen divinely inspired
under the fruit tree and lotus
I am a vessel channelling lyrics
down from the greater consciousness

And if the angels circle my head
come let them sit on my shoulder
For I am not here just for my service
I have been put here to

Raise the veil, between you and me
between the Muslims and Christians
between self-righteous who conquered the serfs
earning more profits, and saving the earth

There is a light in our unconscious vision
There is a bridge that connects each decision
I am not simply here for my service
I have been put here to

Raise the veil, between you and me
between the guilt and confession
between the mortals and flowers of light
between the soldiers and workers of life
between the verse, the chorus and verse
liberty and the possession
connecting everything to the divine
through this tiny fruit a-furring of mine

Gaps

The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the spirit's one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean that the spirit can discover itself like a once-blind man unbound. The gaps are the clefts in the rock where you cower to see the back parts of God; they are fissures between mountains and cells the wind lances through, the icy narrowing fiords splitting the cliffs of mystery. Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock - more than a maple - universe. ~ Annie Dillard

Dying is not romantic, and death is not a game which will soon be over... Death is not anything... death is not... It's the absence of presence, nothing more... the endless time of never coming back... a gap you can't see, and when the wind blows through it, it makes not sound...” ~ Tom Stoppard

I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none. ~ Ezekiel 22:30

One was left, too, with a gap in Christianity: the canonical gospels do not record that Christ laughed or played. Can a man be perfect if henever laughs or plays? Krishna's jokes may be vapid, but they bridge a gap. ~ E.M. Forster


The gap between the committed and the indifferent is a Sahara whose faint trails, followed by the mind's eye only, fade out in sand. ~ Nadine Gordimer

-- beyond the gap where the river
plunges into the narrow gorge, unseen

-- and the imagination soars, as a voice
beckons, a thundrous voice, endless
-- as sleep: the voice that has ineluctably called them --
that unmoving roar! ~ William Carlos Williams

What kind of gap?
A credibility gap - the difference between what someone else says about a situation and what you understand as being the case.

A generation gap - the lack of understanding between older and younger people because of a different zeitgeist (world spirit) that gives them diverse experiences, references, opinions and behaviors.

What can you do with a gap?

The idiom "fill the gap" means to serve temporarily, not to overcome, not to categorize, not to fulfill.
The idiom "bridge the gap" includes this figurative definition, but literally it signifies the action of constructing a bridge that reaches across a space.