End O’ May….

Once a soul has awakened to the continual music of life, that soul considers it as his responsibility, his duty, to play his part in the outer life, even if it be contrary to his inner condition at the moment.

– Hazrat Inayat Khan

This entry was originally based on these 3 videos: Allen Ginsberg With Paul McCartney “Ballad of The Skeletons” Allen Ginsberg in London-Ah Sunflower Allen Ginsberg – Father Death Blues… I had just watched “The Life And Times Of Allen Ginsberg”, and was hot on the old Allen track.
This is another large entry; I have broken my promise to put out something daily, something small. It seems I want to do the large thing, and if I had the time I would be doing this daily.
I am working on Dr. Con’s new book and setting up the next issue of “The Invisible College”, and trying to launch a new business. Bizzy Bizzy Bizzy. I have been selling off music equipment, Skulls and other items…
Rowan arrived back from out door school last night, and seems no worse for wear, though he did sleep 12 plus hours…
</aPeter’s 50th Birthday I want to note an important event in our part of the Multiverse. My Brother-In -Law Peter is turning 50 years old! (I am amazed how quickly he arrived there, until of course I look in the mirror and see that old guy looking back at me.) Wow. Time hurries on. Peter is perhaps one of the sweetest beings I have had the privilege to know in my time on this lovely green and blue globe… Not only is he a good guy, but a great dad, and one of those who puts his actions where his words are with his work for the environment, for the community and an advocate for life on all its various levels. He is one of the main supporters of Radio Free Earthrites, with generous donations of time and sound over the years. Peter I just have to say: “I love ya man. I do. We wish we could be there for the party. I want you to have a great time!”
That is it for this beautiful Saturday. I wish you all the best, and may love guide you in all things.
Blessings,

Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

The Links

Jocelyn Pook – Her Gentle Spirit

Sufi Aphorisms – Hazrat Inayat Khan

In An Eastern Rose Garden – Intuition – Hazrat Inayat Khan

Allen Ginsberg Videos

The Poetry Of The French Bohemians: Gerard De Nerval

Gerard De Nerval Biography

Jocelyn Pook – Masked Ball

Artist: Thomas Cole (Biography)

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The Links:

What If Marijuana Was De-Criminalized?

Libertarian Radio Host Tries A Little Waterboarding..

Did AI Cause The Financial Crisis?

The Taliban’s War On Sufism

Intelligent Life Sciences Search Engine…

The Illusion Of Sex

Were Mad Men Painting The Caves?

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Jocelyn Pook – Her Gentle Spirit

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Sufi Aphorisms of Hazrat Inayat Khan:
The limitless God cannot be made intelligible to the limited self unless He is first made limited. This limited ideal becomes like an instrument, a medium of God who is perfect and who is limitless.
Many do good, but how few do it wisely! To do good wisely is the work of the sage.
The one who lives in his mind is conscious of the mind; the one who lives in his soul is conscious of the soul.
Truth is unlimited and incomparable; therefore, truth alone knows, enjoys, and realizes its own existence.
The soul is light, the mind is light, and the body is light-light of different grades; and it is this relation which connects man with the planets and stars.
The infinite God is the self of God, and all that has manifested under name and form is the outer aspect of God.
Spirituality is attained by all beings; not only by man but by beasts and birds, for they each have their religion, their principles, their law, and their morals.
The pride that says, “I am so spiritual,” is not spiritual pride; it is earthly pride. For where there is spirituality there is no proud claim.
Spiritual realization can be attained in one moment in rare cases, but generally a considerable time of preparation is needed.
Fineness of nature is the sign of the intelligent. Fineness can be acquired by love of refinement.

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In An Eastern Rose Garden – Intuition

– Hazrat Inayat Khan

Intuition is a part of knowledge that is beyond man’s personality, and above his knowledge of things and names. It comes at times when man becomes passive and exposes himself to that knowledge, consciously or unconsciously.
There are some who are more intuitive, and there are others who are less so; and if we study the nature of their character, we shall know the nature of their intuition. Those who are confused, who are constantly hurried, who are changeable in their nature, who are afraid of death, of disease, of their own actions, of their enemies, of their surroundings; those who have constant doubt, wondering whether they can trust this person or that, whether a friend may or may not prove worthy, and so on it is all these who have less possibility of intuition. Those who can trust without troubling themselves, those who have few doubts, are usually cleared in their perception. Those who trust in the inner guidance, who understand the secret of the instinct that works through animals and all creatures, those who are pious, those who wish to walk in the light, who always prefer the right way of thinking and speaking and acting it is these who often experience intuition.
Intuition is the first step, inspiration is the second, and revelation is the third. When revelation begins, it has arisen from intuition; for intuition is the fist stage.
What is its way of manifestation? How is intuition expressed? Intuition is of two kinds: it may come without intention, without being invited, or it may come when one asks oneself a question. In the first kind a person may be sitting down, and the thought comes to him that a danger is awaiting him; in what way it may occur he does not know, he just feel it. Next day he finds that something was going to happen to him. Then he sometimes thinks that happiness is coming from a friend, that someone from whom he has been parted for a long time is coming to see him. Sometimes he thinks an enemy is going to turn into a friend; and yet he had not been thinking of the subject. The thought comes to him suddenly. It proves true, it proves right. Without inquiry a thought comes to us which tells us of a coming event. People sometimes take this to be a spirit-communication; sometimes they take it to be thought-transference from someone else. Both ideas are possible, but intuition is a greater and higher thing than spirit-communication or thought-reading, because it is pure; it is our won property; it belongs to us. In this we do not depend upon a spirit, or upon another person sending a thought to us. In this we are perfectly independent; we receive the

knowledge from within, which is far superior, greater, and higher.
The second kind of intuition is that of which it is said in the Bible, ‘Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.’ Knocking at the door is asking within one’s own self, ‘What will become of this particular business, or aim, or object that I am thinking of?’ As soon as one knocks at the gate of God, which is one’s heart, from there the answer comes, and it is a truer answer than any other person can give. There is no one who can know as much about our life, affairs, objects, motives as we do ourselves. And therefore nobody can advise us better than ourselves.
Mankind cannot understand this secret, and consequently begins by depending on the advice of others. This would be advantageous if one had the good fortune to find a better adviser. But sometimes the person from whom advice is asked is foolish, sometimes he is an enemy, sometimes he himself is in confusion and cannot advise. Therefore people keep themselves from their real and true adviser: the guiding faculty within.
Intuition begins in the form of impressions. As soon as we see a person we have an impression of him. His face, his features, his expression, his atmosphere have in a way made an impression on us of his goodness, his righteousness, his wisdom or foolishness, his being useful or not, his being displeased with us or not, his being our friend or enemy. Whatever his condition may be, we receive it without knowing from any other source that these are his feelings. According to our own openness of spirit we get our impressions. We may receive a kind of impression as to whether we will be successful in our business or not. All these impressions convey to a man that his intuition is beginning. That is the first step.
After having intuition about individuals in their relation to ourselves, the next step is the intuition which occurs when another person is telling us of his projects. We have an impression as to whether they will be successful or not. We cannot give a reason for it; or even if we do we become aware that as we utter the reason it is not the real reason. For as soon as we begin to think it out, we at once descend from the higher, the spiritual source of information. To try and prove the basic truth of its spiritual source by means of reason, is to use earthly means to establish that which belongs to heaven. A proper reason for an intuition cannot be given.
The source from which this knowledge comes is not reason. People who are very good at reasoning can go on fighting all their lives, and yet nothing may come of it. Ultimately their reasoning turns into a play on words and terms; and as a word can be made to mean anything, they have always an easy way of escape from being caught by the person with whom they argue. It is just like wrestling; or just as in a court of law two barristers will each present their case as being the truth even though they may in fact know that it is not true. They fight with their reason and logic.
First of all, it is necessary to realize that when we see that our impressions are right and our doubts cannot destroy them, and we have been right in ten impressions and wrong in only one, then we know that the wrong one was not what we thought it was. When this realization has evolved, then we are able to know things intuitively. The difference between imagination and

intuition is sometimes puzzling to define. Both come in the same way. When a certain imagination began to construct itself, we cannot say. The imagination came suddenly; but so also does intuition. That is why it is so difficult to discriminate between them. The truth is that if imagination comes with light, then it is certainly intuition. Every imagination is intuition until it has been corrupted by reason; and when the intuition is corrupted by reason it becomes imagination. But every imagination and every thought which is illumined by the intelligence is always an intuition; and therefore to an illuminated person any thought or imagination is intuition.
To him there is never a thought or imagination which is not an intuition.
But it is difficult to keep these from being corrupted by reason, because as soon as they are produced we doubt whether they are right or not right. We doubt it until we have killed all the truth of our intuition. Our doubts are always the enemies of our intuition; and therefore practice is required in everyday life to keep intuition from being corrupted and finally destroyed by our

doubts. We ought to build a fence round intuitions as if they were delicate plants, and protect them from being destroyed by reason and doubts. By doing so, in time we grow to be sure of our intuitions, and then we never fail to get things right. And when the intuitions become right then the dreams become right. We see what is really going to happen in every thought which

comes to us; the truth of life. Then our life becomes a miracle; there is no need to look for wonders in the outside world. Our own has become full of wonders. To the illuminated one every night’s dream becomes a book that tells the past, the present, and the future, both of himself and of all those whom he cares for or wishes to know about.
The next step is inspiration. Inspiration is not only the coming of a single thought, a single idea, but of a flow of ideas. One may express them in poetry, in music, in philosophy, in speech, in writing, in thinking. The inspirations come as many ideas. Inspiration is developed intuition. The expression of inspiration is according to one’s particular ability. If a person speaks a beautiful language, he can express his ideas in that language. All prophets and messengers have received the same message, but they have uttered it in different language. Why? Because surely it is one idea, one knowledge from heaven , but it is expressed according to the language the receiver is accustomed to, seeing that he has no other with which to express it.
The angels are not as great as man, because though they are gifted with the higher knowledge and are in the higher spheres, they have no power of expression. Man gets his knowledge from the higher source, but expresses it through the means provided by the lower spheres.
The Qur’an tells that God said to the angels, ‘I am going to create man, who will be the chief of creation.’ They asked, ‘Are we not a satisfactory army of servants who are always busy in Thy praise and admire Thy beauty and glorify Thy name? Why intendest Thou to create one who will do evil and shed blood, as he will do?’ The answer was, ‘Are you capable of appreciating all that I have made? Can you tell me what are the names of these things that I have made?’ God asks man; man tells Him all the names of things, the things that are sweet or bitter, then names of all manner of things; he knows and enjoys all these things in nature. That is why God says, ‘We have created him that he may be the chief of all creation, and enjoy all that We have created.’ Therefore those who think that the heavenly knowledge is sufficient are mystical; but the joy of the heavenly knowledge and the full understanding of it come from being able to express it in this world’s medium of expression. Therefore man can have knowledge both from within and from the external world. When the two come together, there is a perfect expression.
The last and most delicate degree of intuition is revelation. This comes to prophets and perfected beings. This is a full light thrown upon the human personality, full light from within. To their eyes, ears, sense of taste or touch, all things disclose their secret. Those who have received this knowledge even partly, have by receiving it come to understand the properties of this plant or that, to know that this bitter medicine is good for this purpose,, this sweet one for that, this drug or that vegetable for another. The knowledge of the property of the names and forms of the world is understood by them to the extent that revelation has helped them. When they look into the mind, they know all about the mind. When they study the earth, they come to know it. Whatever they try to know, they succeed in knowing; such is revelation. Those who look in the higher spheres are prophets, those who look on the earth are scientists, musicians, soldiers, and so on. It is from the direction in which he has studied that a man receives the revelation. In the higher spheres all things become clear to those who direct their attention to these spheres.
A man even sees his future in the teacup, with limited light; similarly he sees it in cards, in the crystal, in the coals of the fire, in smoke. All these things have the future written in them; it is the same light that shines upon them and begins to reveal itself in them. It is not only books, but all things in nature which begin to reveal the secrets of nature to him.
Sa’di says, ‘When the eyes open and begin to see with the divine light and divine sight, even the leaves of the trees become as the pages of the sacred Book.’

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Allen Ginsberg Videos:
Allen Ginsberg With Paul McCartney “Ballad of The Skeletons”

Allen Ginsberg in London-Ah Sunflower

Allen Ginsberg – Father Death Blues

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The Poetry Of The French Bohemians: Gerard De Nerval

An Old Tune
There is an air for which I would disown

Mozart’s, Rossini’s, Weber’s melodies, –

A sweet sad air that languishes and sighs,

And keeps its secret charm for me alone.
Whene’er I hear that music vague and old,

Two hundred years are mist that rolls away;

The thirteenth Louis reigns, and I behold

A green land golden in the dying day.
An old red castle, strong with stony towers,

The windows gay with many coloured glass;

Wide plains, and rivers flowing among flowers,

That bathe the castle basement as they pass.
In antique weed, with dark eyes and gold hair,

A lady looks forth from her window high;

It may be that I knew and found her fair,

In some forgotten life, long time gone by.


El Desdichado

(Translated as The Unhappy One) – Published in Les Chimerès (1854)
I am the shadowy — the widowed — sadly mute,

At ruined tower still the Prince of Aquitaine:

My single star is dead — my constellated lute

Now bears the sable sun of melancholy pain.
In darkness in my grave, you who once could cheer,

Return me Posilipo and the Italian sea,

The flower which was to my tormented heart so dear,

The trellis where the rose and vine entwined could be.
Am I Amor or Phoebus?…Lusignan or Biron?

My forehead is still red from that kiss by the queen;

That grotto where the siren swims, I’ve had my dream…
Two times the conquerer I’ve crossed the Acheron,

And on the lyre of Orpheus, changing from key to key,

I’ve sung both saintly sighs and sung the fairy’s lay.



Myrto

Published in Les Chimerès (1854)
It is of you, divine enchantress, I am thinking, Myrto,

Burning with a thousand fires at haughty Posilipo,

Of your forehead flowing with an Oriental glare,

Of the black grapes mixed with the gold of your hair.
From your cup also I drank to intoxication,

And from the furtive lightning of your smiling eyes,

While I was seen praying at the feet of Iacchus,

For the Muse has made me one of Greece’s sons.
Over there the volcano has re-opened, and I know

It is because yesterday you touched it with your nimble toe,

And suddenly the horizon was covered with ashes.
Since a Norman Duke shattered your gods of clay,

Evermore beneath the branches of Virgil’s laurel,

The pale hydrangea mingles with the green myrtle!


Fantasy

There is a melody for which I would surrender

All Rossini, all Mozart, all Weber,

An ancient, langorous, funereal tune,

With hidden charms for me alone.

And every time I hear that air,

Suddenly I grow two centuries younger,

I live in the reign of Louis the Thirteenth.

A green slope yellowed by the sunset,

Then a brick castle with stone corners,

Its panes of glass stained by ruddy colors,

Encircled by great parks, and a river

Bathing its feet, flowing between flowers.

Then I see a fair-haired, dark-eyed lady

In old-fashioned costume, at a tall window,

Whom perhaps I have already seen somewhere

In another life. .. and whom I remember!
Biography Of Gerard De Nerval
The French poet Gérard de Nerval (1808-1855) was an early romantic. His prose and poetry mark him as a precursor of the many movements, from symbolism to surrealism, that shaped modern French literature.
Gérard de Nerval was born Gérard Labrunie on May 22, 1808, in Paris. Because of his parents’ immediate departure for Silesia, where his mother died, Nerval was taken to the home of maternal relatives in the Valois. This region played a prominent part in many of his works. The fact that his early years were bereft of parental care probably contributed to his subsequent lack of mental equilibrium.
Upon his father’s return from the Napoleonic Wars in 1814, Nerval returned to Paris. As a day pupil at the Lycée Charlemagne, he distinguished himself by his precocious literary gifts and made the acquaintance of a lifelong friend, the poet Théophile Gautier.
Nerval’s translation in 1827 of J. W. von Goethe’s Faust (Part I) earned him the praise of Goethe and opened influential Parisian literary circles to him. His admiration for Victor Hugo converted him to the romantic movement. In the 1830s Nerval belonged to the petit cénacle, a group of minor artistic figures that gravitated around Gautier.
In 1834 Nerval received an inheritance from his maternal grandparents that enabled him to pursue exclusively the literary career of which his father disapproved. Nerval gave up his nominal study of medicine and made a brief trip to Italy, a tour that had a powerful and lasting effect on his imagination.
Meanwhile, Nerval fell in love with Jenny Colon, an actress, for whom he founded a theatrical review, Le Monde dramatique. It failed after 2 years. The brilliant and gay life that Nerval led during this brief period of prosperity was succeeded by a lifetime of financial difficulties and personal sadness. The poet lost both his small patrimony and Jenny Colon, who married another. During this period Nerval centered his main literary efforts on the theater, a genre basically uncongenial to his talents. In spite of an occasional success, such as Piquillo (1837), his efforts in the theater generally met with failure.
The years 1839-1841 were ones of growing eccentricities and depression for Nerval. His translation of Faust (Part II), which appeared in 1840, culminated in a mental breakdown that caused him to be hospitalized in 1841. His mental stability thus shattered, Nerval’s life became more precarious and difficult because he depended upon his pen for his living. In order to mend his health, Nerval made a trip to the Orient in 1843. His health regained, he published articles dealing with his travels in serial form in various periodicals. During these years of remission from mental breakdown, he also published chronicles, essays, poems, and novellas in many magazines, all the time trying unsuccessfully to establish himself in the theater. He also traveled in foreign countries and in the Valois. Wandering had become a temperamental necessity, and it is an important theme in his major works.
In 1848 Nerval published his translation of Heinrich Heine’s poetry. In 1851 Le Voyage en Orient appeared. Under the guise of a travelog, it concerned itself with the pilgrimage of a soul, being more revealing of the inner geography of Nerval than of Egypt, Lebanon, or Turkey.
Nerval’s major works were all written in the last few years of his life under the threat of incurable insanity. A serious relapse in 1851 marked him irrevocably. In 1852 he published Les Illuminés, a series of biographical sketches of unorthodox and original figures. In 1853 Les Petits châteaux de Bohême appeared. It was a nostalgic recounting of his happy years. It also contained the Odelettes, early poems in the manner of Pierre de Ronsard. Nerval then published his best and most famous story, Sylvie, in the Revue des deux mondes. In this tale he explored the sources of memory and transfigured the Valois of his childhood. It was included in Les Filles du feu in 1854. That same year Les Chimères, a series of 12 hermetic sonnets, also appeared.
During this period Nerval was also writing an autobiographical work, Les Nuits d’Octobre, and Aurélia, his last and most occult work. In Aurélia Nerval described the experience of madness and his attempt to overcome it by means of the written word.
In January 1855, destitute and desperate, Nerval committed suicide by hanging himself in a Parisian alley.

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Jocelyn Pook – Masked Ball

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Thomas Cole Biography:
The nineteenth century saw the development of a type of painting which came to be called the “Hudson River School.” One of the founders and greatest painters in the Hudson River School was Thomas Cole.
Thomas Cole was born in Bolton-le-Moors, Lancashire, England in 1801. His family immigrated to America when he was 17. Cole probably learned the basics of oil painting from an itinerant portrait artist named John Stein, and in addition spent two years at the Pennsylvania School of Fine Arts. He first exhibited in New York, where painter Asher B. Durand and Colonel John Trumbull saw his work and found patrons for him.
In the nineteenth century there were several ways artists sold their work. Some artists worked on commission, in which case a person, called a patron, would hire them to paint a certain scene or portrait. These patrons often provided money for artists to travel, particularly in Italy, Greece or France. European travel was considered essential to an artist’s development and training. In addition, artists could make work that was not specifically commissioned, and put that work in shows or galleries where people would see the work, and possibly purchase it. After purchasing several of Cole’s paintings from the gallery where he was exhibiting, George W. Bruen paid for Cole’s first trip up the Hudson River, the area he and other painters would return to so frequently in their work that they became known as the Hudson River School.
The Hudson River School consisted of a group of artists that painted romantic landscapes of the northeast portion of the United States, particularly around the Hudson River area. Cole is considered a founder of this group and the style of landscape painting the Hudson River School artists were famous for. Cole painted American landscapes, and argued for the unique place American scenery had in the world.
In the nineteenth century America was searching for an identity. A young, untested nation, an “experiment in democracy,” it needed a way to show the world its uniqueness and value. One way Americans could assert the validity and power of their nation was through paintings that argued for America’s unique scenery. Cole’s powerful landscapes showed aspects of America such as mountains, forests, and waterfalls that did not exist in the same form in Europe.
In his “Essay on American Scenery” Cole praises the value of landscape itself, extolling the spirituality inherent in the beauty of scenery. Nature was inseparable from religion, according to Cole. He himself was active in the Episcopal Church. Cole was married in St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Catskill, in 1836. Cole married Maria Bartow, the niece of John Alexander from whom Cole rented a summer studio in 1834. Both Cole and his wife were baptized at St. Luke’s several years into their marriage. He was also the primary architect in the rebuilding of St. Luke’s after it was destroyed by fire, and a delegate to an Episcopal convention in New York.
Cole criticized the march of modern society, accusing people of losing their regard for “simplicity and beauty.” In his “Essay on American Scenery” Cole states, “the spirit of our society is to contrive but not to enjoy–toiling to produce more toil–accumulating in order to aggrandize.” It is not surprising that much of Cole’s work celebrates nature, and often has a theme of the underlying power of the natural world.
When people appear in Cole’s paintings they are dwarfed by the immensity of nature. Some of Cole’s most famous and renown works include the paintings in the series entitled “The Course of Empire,” which shows the rise and fall of a civilization. The last painting in this series is an image of trees and plants springing up around the ruins of the fallen empire–nature reclaiming the landscape.
Thomas Cole died in 1848 in Catskill, New York after several months of poor health. He contributed a unique way of showing American scenery. He provided a large body of work arguing for the value of landscape, specifically in the United States. After his death he was memorialized in a painting by Asher Durand and continues to be remembered by painters and lovers of American art.

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