lailea

Her music reminds me of my hometown, of smoky blues bars where beers are a buck, of cold city streets where people in wool coats and scarves around their necks step over steaming grates, of a friend who knows every single word to every single song and sways with eyes closed as she sings along...

See me for who I am, not for who you expect me to be.


I was reading Osho and ruminating on some of his ideas...



"When desire is there, you are disturbed. The mind is shattered into fragments, and many plans, dreams, projections start; you become mad. Desire is the seed of madness."
~Osho

Desire is greed, want. When a person obtains that object or person, desire is satiated. Depending on one's level of intelligence, it could take three hours to three years or longer before one realizes this and then no longer wants the object of desire. Then they want something else. Desire is never satiated and has no real concern for the object.



"If you are calculative, cunning, clever, much too clever, then you will miss the heart. And modern man is so educated, so sophisticated, so clever; that is why he has become incapable of love."

"Love is the meaning of life."

"Really, when you fall in love you throw your reason completely. That is why we say man 'falls' in love. Falls from where? Falls from the head down into the heart....Through love every moment becomes a value in itself."
~Osho

He discusses romantic relationships before discussing how love exists in the universe. The romantic, to him, is a connection to and reflection of divine love.

I have no interest in contemplating romance, however. I think people have the capacity to fall in love with existence or with the universe. My focus is on love in general. It's difficult to meditate on love, because it's abstract and an emotion one has to reach far within to observe before it projects outward. Not desire, not need, but love. It's simple, but in its simplicity, it's difficult. It's worth the effort, however, and enables one to enter into a pleasant state.



One thing I do appreciate his saying (and I realize many others are now saying it as well), is that women are more capable of reaching higher states of awareness, since, because the female body is always in flux, she is less attached to her body. Men, because they exert control over their bodies, have much more difficulty in releasing their control.

I don't know if women are necessarily any more capable than men; I can't say, because I don't know a man's experience. It's true, however, that women see themselves distinct from their bodies. A woman's body goes through many changes and often pain, so that detachment from the physical is a necessity. Pain seems to facilitate a lot as far as one's awareness is concerned.

"Expose yourself to your deepest fear;
After that, fear has no power,
And the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes.
You are free."
~Jim Morrison


She sends me a paper; something to look at, she claims. It's a short analysis of a story, a rather disturbing story which is layered in symbolism and thick in allusion. What she really wants is for me to catch any mistakes before she turns it into her professor. A sister's tithe.

The problem with literary analysis is that a work can be interpreted in a milieu of ways. Only the author can know for certain what his or her work means. I try to explain this, but she doesn't care. She just wants an A.

Nevertheless, I know to never claim certainty when it pertains to someone's words. It's a life lesson, really. Breathe love, remain centered, but never, ever read too far into or within something without logic at the helm and a tight fist on the heart.

Glósóli (Glowing Sun)

"Now that you're awake
Everything seems different
I look around
But there's nothing at all..."




Sæglópur (A lost seafarer)

"Alive
Has returned home
A lost seafarer
Alive
Has returned home
A diver comes"

An absolutely beautiful collage of Hubble pictures depicting galaxies merging.

I never said I wasn't me. No one ever asked. I thought I was forgotten; perhaps I have been. I'm rather transparent. Deception is not my forte.

(A poem snagged from shadowsculptor's lj)

Fable
by János Pilinszky

Once upon a time
there was a lonely wolf
lonelier than the angels.

He happened to come to a village.
He fell in love with the first house he saw.

Already he loved its walls
the caresses of its bricklayers.
But the windows stopped him.

In the room sat people.
Apart from God nobody ever
found them so beautiful
as this child-like beast.

So at night he went into the house.
He stopped in the middle of the room
and never moved from there any more.

He stood all through the night, with wide eyes
and on into the morning when he was beaten to death.



I saw a bee this morning moving from rose to rose. It made me smile. I find it amazing that the delicate flowers bloom so late into the heartache of November.

I received a text message at 4am, which simply said, "I miss you." I remained awake until well after the sun was up, steeped in thought and finally wondering, how will he tell me such things after he's been sent?

Trying times. I broke with a man I'd been with for more years than I care to count. It was peaceful, mutual and necessary. Though there were some quiet tears, we remain close and I'll still be attending art openings.

"Although gold dust is precious, when it gets in your eyes, it obstructs your vision."
~Hsi-Tang



Be cold, stone heart
Turn away witless tears
Chill any passion which rises to throttle you
Kill that waking nemesis, that worm
that vicious light which threatens your drums
Murder hope's black wings
Like his heart
be cold

"Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive."
~Elbert Hubbard

Life is a moving meditation. Love is its breath.


My sisters thrive on emotion during the holidays, passionate soliloquies in the kitchen; they viciously raise to life old arguments to toss into each other's faces, then remind the other of their faults with too blunt observations. "You're the sane one," my brother-in-law once said to me. How could I have explained to him then that their arguments were merely expressions of their love for each other? Nevertheless, I'm rather wary of going home for the holiday.


I would if I could hold you, still you long enough to have a conversation, but you're like a firefly, a dashing, darting bright illumination along the edge of the horizon whose beauty can only be witnessed in glimpses.

"Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand."
~Baruch Spinoza



Don't judge a falling leaf before it hits the ground
See its colors
See how it looks like a cardinal's wing?
Even fallen, it stays in motion

Because you pointed out the obvious and wished that I wouldn't do what I've done, I'll no longer do what I did and be whole again. H told me what you said. Thank you. Love you. Peace.

My principles have been compromised for others. It hurts.


My mom is better! I called her cell today, anticipating my father's quivering voice, a voice that hides all fear with a shiver of laughter, and my mom answered! She didn't sound weak, but began to complain about the hospital food. When she complains, I know she's well.

Ironic, isn't it? Our own ill health is so much easier to face than the ill health of someone you care for.

I was wound, my heart caught in my throat, my stomach turning. "__ hates me," I whispered into my hair. I felt alone. Solitary. Then you, my dear soul sister, spoke.


You're right. The heart is wiser than the mind. I'll listen. Thank you.



"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt... If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."
~Thomas Jefferson, 1798 after passage of the Sedition Act

I can't see the moon tonight. It's covered.


Though I think not
To think about it,
I do think about it
And shed tears
Thinking about it.
~Ryōkan


I think on my mother in a hospital bed so faraway. My sister calls and becomes angry with me because I'm too calm. "You never yell," she says, "so you don't care." It isn't that I don't care; rather, I care too much to draw attention to my own emotions. Now is the time to express love, not selfishness. (If being calm creates too much of a disturbance, then perhaps I should cry? I'd rather not yell.) My sister doesn't understand, though tomorrow she will apologize for her outburst.


A nice poem for a full moon:

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water.
The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.
Although its light is wide and great,
The moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide.
The whole moon and the entire sky
Are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.
~Dōgen

"Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsense of those that think they talk sense."
~Robert Frost


My mom is in the hospital. It was the worst Halloween I've ever known. I prayed.



Expect Nothing

Expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.
become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human midget
Exists at all
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
On surprise.

~Alice Walker


I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.
He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth,--the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.
And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms.
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.

~Dickinson

"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood."
– Marie Curie

Your words were laced with distance, cold and calculated. And I listened. And I thought long on each syllable of your making. I thought you were wise, but you were simply being mean--passive-aggressive and so very solitary. Warm blessings to you and yours, I'd say. And I read your biting words, your pronounced periods. Your every word seemed limned in disdain. And I listened. And I thought too long on each syllable of your making.

Whatever happened to make a kind man cruel and a laughing man sneer, I'm sorry. My love to you and yours. A shame you never understood the warmth in my blessings. A shame you never understood my later coldness was a mirror of your own.

And now I've had the last word.

Love isn't want
Hope falls to dust --
Peace

The clearing was successful, though both physically and emotionally draining. I honestly didn't believe anything would change with it, regardless of how gifted they are. I was wrong. Some things can't be explained by conventional means or logic. Now I meander, picking up the pieces of who I am and attempting to remember what my life once was. I feel hollow. I'm not supposed to think of it, the clearing. They fear I might inadvertently call something of that nature back. I don't pretend to understand how that works. The truths that were once mirages are now clear, however. I don't know why anyone would have... I don't think I want to know. People have the capacity to be hateful and cruel and vicious. I want to feel angry, but I can't. I was too arrogant to notice. I've been humbled.

Before you judge me, look again. Look again closely and remember.
...
"What happened to you?" you asked. I'll tell you the whole of it if you ask me directly, sans mind games or disguise. So long as you play me a fool, you may expect the same treatment in kind. Be you?
...
Thank you for allowing me to be privy to that conversation. I would like to know, however, who was asking the questions about me. I missed the reference on the last part. I trust the answers will come. Won't you oblige? My confidences have been checked accordingly.
...
Tomorrow, a group of "gifted" individuals will be doing a clearing or exorcism or whatever it is they call it on my home. I'm so very tired. They contacted me after they learned of my problem. They ask for no money. I have no will to fight anymore.

"I have gone into the outer darkness of scientific and philosophical transactions and proceedings, ultra-respectable, but covered with the dust of disregard. I have descended into journalism. I have come back with the quasi-souls of lost data."

-Charles Fort , The Book of the Damned




"No one will ever believe you."
He was right, of course.

Wonderful quote of the day

"When we can begin to take our failures nonseriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them. It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves."
– Katherine Mansfield



Flower of Life Mandala - Good for Stillness and Calm