other people's words

flicking through my old notebook, i come across these words:



Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.

Jesus,
quoted in Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines in an attempt to bolster his theory that nomadism is mankind's original and ideal activity

Accepting the suffering of being alive gives space to rejoicing in life and ALL that includes and is necessary for Beingness

email from Lavanya

Je realize je ne suis pas l'artiste mais L'Attrapeur de moments.  une attrapeuse.  L'ARTISTE de cette beauté est plus Grand que Moi, c'est la toile de vie, Moi j'occupe une petite place.  Mais j'espère l'occuper Grandement avec joie et aussi Souffrance.

Lavanya

Nimic Real nu poate fi amenintat.  Nimic irreal nu exista.  In aceasta consta pacea lui Dumnezeu.

Fiecare forma este facuta sa se dizolve.  

In ultima instanta, niciun lucru exterior nu conteaza prea mult.

Eckhart Tolle,
romanian translation of The Power of Now

All life we work but work is a bore.

If life's for livin', what's livin' for?

The Kinks

Lo que es decisivo aquí y determina el orden de rango no son las obras, sino - para emplear una vez más una vieja fórmula religiosa con un significado nuevo y más profundo - la creencia, la certeza fundamental que tiene un alma noble sobre sí misma, algo que no puede buscarse, no puede encontrarse, y quizás, tampoco puede perderse.  El alma noble se reverencia a sí misma.

Friedrich Nietzsche,

más allá del bien y el mal

. . . a sensuous nature still felt to be mysteriously animate and alive, filled with immanent powers.  In the words of the pre-Socrate philosopher Thalos: "all things are full of Gods"

There is no element of the landscape that is definitively void of expressive resonance and power.  Any movement may be a gesture, any sound may be a voice, a meaningful utterance

David Abram

The spell of the sensuous

 Perception is selection

Alan Wattts

Nous avons traversé les ténèbres de l'océan et l'immensité de la terre.  Nous avons enfin trouvé la fontaine de Jouvence.  Elle nous attendais patiemment, au coeur de nous-memes.

Jalal Ud Din Rumi

Ce que nous avons vécu est-il raisonable?  Non, ce n'est pas raisonnable.  Mais Dieu est-il raisonnable?  Le monde, l'existence, les rencontres de hasard, ce qui arrive ou n'arrive pas, tout cela est-il raisonnable?  La vérité, c'est que nous ne cherchons pas à comprendre mais a réduire les prodiges de la vie à la dimension de la coquille de noix où notre esprit a fait son nid

Henri Gougaud

Les sept plumes de l'aigle

- Chura, il y a un mystère ici.

Il m'a répondu: Oui. Un grand.

- C'est quoi, Chura?

Il s'est arreté au milieu de la nuit, il m'a regardé et il m'a dit: Le mystère?  C'est toi.

Henri Gougaud

Nabokov adds that "the initial shiver of inspiriation" for Lolita "was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal:  this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage.

from the introduction to Lolita

La libertad, Sancho, es uno de los más preciosos dones que a los hombres dieron los cielos, con ella no pueden igualarse los tesoros que encierra la tierra ni el mar encubre, por la libertad . . . se puede y debe aventurar la vida.

Miguel de Cervantes

Don Quijote

Si Dieu est éternel, il ne peut agir dans le monde que en se manifestant en certains moments particuliers, comme notre rencontre maintenant.

 words spoken to me by a man with shining eyes, who gave me a lift in the south of france

Do something pretty while you can

Don't be a fool

Reading the gospel to yourself is fine

Stuart Murdoch

la palma

  

  

  

  

  

isbrand had a camera on his phone by which he was able to capture some fleeting images of the clouds floating around the rocky peaks.  it made me want to head back down to santa cruz and buy a camera from one of the electrical stores and come back up and dedicate myself to looking marvelled through the lens and composing and capturing all the subtle little signs of beauty which float through the shifting clouds scenes seen from on high on a rocky peak.  the first time we climbed up to the ridge - having walked for two days through the cloud forest, carrying lots of water and resting frequently to lay down our heavy packs - we thought that we had arrived in Paradise.  all around us stretched a sea of white fluffy insubstantial clouds mystically rising and transforming, constantly in mystical movement.  it was awe-inspiring.  nos quedamos boquibiertos.  ma come può esistere tanta bellezza?  all day we were in a way breathless, inundated by beauty.  never had i felt flooded by so much beauty.  flooded.  it was very exciting.  each morning we watched the sun rise from its bed of clouds, flooding with golden light the rare atmosphere of the rocky volcanic world on high and isbrand would look at me with an expression of simple wonder and say:  another day in Paradise!

we decided to stay up there for as long as possible, which was made possible by the clouds rising one night and a light rain falling, which i caught in my outstretched tarp, refilling all our bottles of water with delicious pure water from the sky.  on day three our food supplies began to dwindle.  nevertheless, the prospect of heading back down to earth - the valley - the clouds - did not appeal to us in the slightest.  "let us stay up here and fast" the solution quickly came.  "instead of food, we shall nourish ourselves on sunlight and pure air!"   the ecstatic solution.

"how would real hunger-gatherers survive?" pondered isbrand.  he told me he had tried some of the berries on the bushes on the way up, and that he had been licking the water droplets from the leaves when we passed through the clouds.

"hunter gatherers would adapt to their surroundings" i told isbrand when we finally found ourselves down in the village of El Paso, "and would take advantage of any food source they could find."  i was carrying a big cardboard box full of brocolli, leeks, oranges, six cartons of milk and bags of rice and pasta, having gleaned the mere surface of what the supermarket was throwing out.

"it is not easy to lead a hunter-gatherer lifestyle nowadays" says isbrand, "to live outside the system"  he is referring to the "prohibido hacer fuego" and "prohibido acampar" signs.  "they make it almost obligatory that you work for money and pay for accommodation"

however, there are ways and means, and the wild sweet almond trees, the chestnut trees, the oranges and the avocados now ripe on la palma make the woods a very inviting place to stay.

sunrise on la palma

at the beginning of the world all was dark and unformed.  a nebulous mass of water vapour swirled around the flanks of the dark volcano.  the cold stars shone dimly from on high.  from my unconsciousness i emerged; i stirred in my hammock and saw that the eastern sky was aflame with bright red.  i quicky got up and went into the refuge. "isbrand" i called softly, "wake up!  you gotta see this sunrise"

El teide - the 3718m volcano tenerife - from across the sea which was a sea of clouds, gracefully rose into a sky of grandiose arabesque flaming red clouds.  from my 2,000m rocky perch on the old volcanic crest of la palma, i watched breathtaken as the red slowly mellowed into bright yellow.  the whole of the sky behind the volcano radiated a brighter and brighter yellow.  then everything stood still.  i thought: is that it?  has the sun risen?  why hasn't it assumed its familiar ball shape?  and then it came.  the flaming majestic fiery orb, inch by swift inch, rising steadily above the volcano, speading its good news of abundant warmth and light.

the world had begun.