Author: Gwyllm

‘The Puzzle’

Someone who keeps aloof from suffering

is not a lover. I choose your love

above all else. As for wealth

if that comes, or goes, so be it.

Wealth and love inhabit separate worlds.
But as long as you live here inside me,

I cannot say that I am suffering.

– Sanai….

Don’t speak of your suffering — He is speaking.

Don’t look for Him everywhere — He’s looking for you.
An ant’s foot touches a leaf, He senses it;

A pebble shifts in a streambed, He knows it.
If there’s a worm hidden deep in a rock,

He’ll know its body, tinier than an atom,
The sound of its praise, its secret ecstasy –

All this He knows by divine knowing.
He has given the tiniest worm its food;

He has opened to you the Way of the Holy Ones.

– Sanai
This is a pretty large edition… working on it over the last week, hunting this, hunting that… The weather here has been pretty darn hot, and continues to be so. I was fine with it until yesterday, and had a meltdown. Not a pretty sight! Anyway, here we are with first, some updates on Turfing, Friends & EarthRites Radio, and then into the new stuff.
I hope you enjoy your visit!
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You can now follow Turfing via Twitter! I will be announcing updates for all things EarthRites at: http://www.twitter.com/EarthRites

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Visitors From Afar….

We were blessed with an evening and morning visit from Roberto & Leslie coming south from an art show in Bellevue, on their way home close to Grass Valley, in the Sierra. Monday late afternoon, hanging out. Roberto & Leslie came to us from Laura & Dale Pendell, their neighbors by a few miles. Roberto popped up on my FB account earlier this year, and we have been having some great conversations along the way.
We have lots of common interest, and experiences. Beginning a conversation with the two of them is like you have been friends forever. Of course, this may be very true. I have been blessed with good companions, fellow travelers, friends, family and lovers in my time on this bright and shining sphere.
We had a great time, first some drinks, then a visit to Caer Llwydd, then up the street for dinner at our local Thai Eatery. We came home to a very, very warm house, and finished the evening with Absinthe, laughter, and good company. They headed south early on Tuesday and made it home safely…
If you get a chance, please check out their website. First rate Art, and very wonderful at that. I love the marriage of art/function. Not enough in our world. Roberto & Leslie bring a bit of beauty with them on many levels…!http://www.hiddenspringdesigns.com/

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Radio Free EarthRites, is possibly going away. We are trying to save it, but at this point it is off the air, and it looks like it will not come back as we have known it. Our gracious host in the UK can no longer devote time, nor space for it, and that is the short story of it all… So… we are having to move servers, and it will be a bit of a hurdle. If we move back to the US we have to keep the RIAA people off our backs, and this will cost a pretty penny. I will keep you posted! I do think we will survive, but it will change in format. Hopefully I can start doing some live shows again, and we might do some podcast set ups, and mobile phone streaming…80) I have been very touched by all who have stepped forward with offers of help. I was on the verge of giving up hope.
I have felt that Radio Free EarthRites has a great potential. I believe it could be the basis for many aspects of community building, education, and just plain fun. If you would like to help out, let us know. We could create something quite marvelous together!
Thanks,

G
On The Menu:

From The Forthcoming Book…

Anarchist Quotes

Fotheringay – 2 Videos

Tales From The Beat Hotel

Taoist Tales…. 2 stories…

Poetry For Deep Summer – Tu Fu

Tu Fu Biography

Empire Of The Sun – 3 Videos

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From “The Forthcoming Book….”
Freiburg im Bresgau, Germany November 1977: Laying on my back in a cold water flat… A blazing sun slowly wheeling inside/overhead. Pinioned on the floor, writhing in fiery heaven, then a frozen hell…. Ancient caravans assemble before tumbled down walls, in deep shadow, a thousand murmuring voices. It seems an infinite moment in time is caught in amber. Golden light fills the great void, as tales of civilizations rising and falling play out in my consciousness. The rays of the sun shear away flesh, blood, bones. I am caught between infinite pleasure and infinite misery…. I am in this place forever. I never existed; I have always existed. I am possessed by angels, I am clay in the hands of demons. The sun is singing and a blazing white light illuminates every cell, every molecule every atom of this thing I call “my beingness’.
Having eaten a gram or so of Hashish, I was following a path set down by Fritz Ludlow a century before. I had become enamored with Ludlow’s work a year of so earlier. I had pursued his ideas from California, to Amsterdam where I had been smoking an ounce or so a week. In this cold water flat, in the ancient part of town, I was now wrestling with the inner core of my being. Everything hinged on these suspended moments, what path I was to follow from here on out… The light was singing, then shrieking, then nothingness. I stepped into the void.
Earlier In Amsterdam: Everything changed in this time. Time took on a new dimension, food and pleasures changed in novel ways. Cigarettes/tobacco were at the service of spliffs only, and my taste for alcohol slowly faded away. I walked through Amsterdam at all hours, haunting museums during the days and walking along the canals at night. Narrow houses, narrow streets, the Provo yellow bicycles everywhere. German tourist couples shopping for thrills in the red light district on the weekends… I would stare out our window and watch the crowds drifting by… Everything was a wonder, trees and shadows giving such delight…

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Anarchist Quotes:

The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.

– Emma Goldman, “What is Anarchy?”
The Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats. They believe that ‘the best government is that which governs least,’ and that which governs least is no government at all.

– Benjamin Tucker
“Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.”

– Leo Tolstoy, Russian Novelist and Christian Anarchist
I build no system. I ask an end to privilege, the abolition of slavery, equality of rights, and the reign of law. Justice, nothing else. That is the alpha and omega of my argument.

– Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the first self-labeled anarchist
From my point of view the killing of another, except in defense of human life, is archistic, authoritarian, and therefore, no Anarchist can commit such deeds. It is the very opposite of what Anarchism stands for…

– Joseph Labadie, Anarchism and Crime
In existing States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it.

– Peter Kropotkin, “Law and Authority”

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Fotheringay – Gypsy Davey {Live 1970}

Fotheringay [Sandy Denny] – Banks of the Nile (1970)

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Tales From The Beat Hotel

by graham seidman August 7, 2003 5:59 am
BEAT GENERATION, TRANSGRESSIVE
The room was a romantic’s dream … a garret … a real goddamn “la Boheme” garret.
There was no window, only a small skylight. Five hundred years ago this room was probably home to a servant in some Noble’s service. Now it was mine. Five flights up. A Turkish toilet (you had to have the agility of a ten year old to squat on the hole in the floor) outside next to the stairs with sheets of France Soir, the local newspaper, in lieu of toilet paper. I’d been homeless since my Army discharge two years earlier, and this was the first place I’d felt at home since then. The word was that Madam Rachou, the hotel’s owner, let you decorate your room any way you wanted and that she loved Americans. Most important she didn’t mind it if our female guests stayed overnight or all week as long as you filled out the little cards required by the police, which she slipped under your door at the stroke of mid-night. It was Algerian wartime in Paris and everyone, every night had to be accounted for. The rent was the equivalent of $21 a month and I was getting $110 on the GI bill. Add two great meals a day for $15 a month with student restaurant tickets subsidized by the French government and there was plenty left over for wine and grass. It was perfect.

I painted one wall black and one wall ochre, the rest white except for the space around the skylight. There, Wally, my childhood friend, oil painted a blue sky with clouds and stars. Gregory Corso added an angel. I painted the “just big enough for two lovers wrapped around each other” iron bed bright red. The room was as small as a monk’s cell … perhaps six by nine feet. I never measured. There was a small white porcelain sink used for washing (cold water only) and pissing in when it was too cold to run out into the hall. The floor was made of ancient octagon shaped terra-cotta tiles. When it got real cold during the winter one could splash alcohol out of a bottle onto the floor, light it with a match and then get out of bed as the fire went out and the room was warm. I loved that room and it was mine for three years. I was rich. I had two pair of blue Levi’s and two sweatshirts, one pair of desert boots and two pair of socks. I wore one set of clothes in the public shower for a once a week washing. My red plaid-hunting jacket with a dead duck carrying pocket in the back came from Abercrombie & Fitch in NY. I had a one-burner alcohol stove and beside mr camera, only one real valued possession, a PX-bought Phillips portable phonograph with a speaker in the case. Harry Phipps and Peter Duchin laid some Jazz records on me when they left Paris. A girl I knew left me some classical records. I was set.
The duffel bag I hauled from New York was filled with the Hundred Great Books, in paperback. Heavy hauling and heavy reading. I planned to go through them in that room on that red iron bed. Now they lined the seaman’s shelves strung up with rope and driftwood planks plucked from the Seine a half a block away.
One morning I dabbed some cold water on my face, pissed in the sink and flew down the five flights to buy some breakfast makings, usually an egg, a half a baguette, a piece of butter and a yogurt washed down with instant coffee. As I bounded out the door I crashed into a well-dressed elderly gentleman who was passing by. I recognized his now-startled famous face. I went into shock when I realized that he was Charlie Chaplin. It was the shock of awe. I couldn’t speak. I was frozen in awe. He and his wife, who I also recognized, were very concerned, thinking I was struck dumb in the crash. Their famous faces switched from worried frowns to broad smiles as they heard me apologize in English. After we assured ourselves that no damage was done they asked me for directions to a restaurant around the corner on the Quai Des Grandes Augustines. I would like to say that they invited me to lunch but they didn’t. I bounded back up the stairs to get my camera, figuring to get some great photos of the Chaplins in Paris. My head was spinning with images of a LIFE cover or a PARIS MATCH spread, the PULITZER PRIZE maybe, but when I returned to the crash site, they had disappeared. I went back up the five flights and made my breakfast on the alcohol stove. After breakfast, I grabbed a book, put on a Duke Ellington record, got in bed and blew a joint. Life was beautiful.
A light knock on the door. As I opened it Janine slipped in and slipped out of her clothes to join me in the red bed.
A hard knock on the door, my neighbor, “little” Jerry, finding the staircase toilet occupied, danced up and down, begged to piss in my sink. He had his own sink but found the practice too unsanitary to use it.
Another tap on the door, Allen Ginsberg asking if he could borrow some alcohol for his stove for which he planned a great chicken soup.
A scratch at the door. Marteau, the gray hotel cat wanted in and a cup of milk.
Another knock, BJ and Burroughs returning from ZiZi’s Moroccan cafe next to the police station near the Hotel De Ville where they went on a hash-buying mission. Divvy-up-time.
Lured by the noise of loud jazz blaring from the speaker, loud laughter from high loud-mouthers as well as the sweet smell of cannibis mixed with strong black Gauloise cigarette tobacco, Corso, dressed in his green velvet, Hamlet costume descended from his attic room to join us.
Banging on the door, Claude, BJ’s live-in girlfriend came by looking for him. Every time she got angry with BJ, usually about his infidelities, she went and slept with someone famous. Her first husband was an English Jazz guitarist so she stuck mostly to musicians. She told us about Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker and others. A few days ago she found BJ in bed with GiGi and after chasing her out with BJ’s belt, vowed to retaliate heavily.
“GUESS WHAT?” she shouted over the noise. “I JUST FUCKED MARLON BRANDO”
“How was he, any good?” asked Janine as the noise came to an abrupt halt.
“A nice guy” reported Claude “but, oh,so inhibited … he gave me the kimono he wore in ‘Sayonara.’ He wants me to go to Spain with him since I speak Spanish.”
“BRANDO?” a defeated BJ exclaimed, ” Where is he? I’ve got to meet him”
BJ looked as though he stepped out of ‘THE WILD ONE’, Brando’s biker film that launched the HELL’S ANGELS look around the world. He was 6 feet 2 inches tall with a full black beard and dressed only in jeans, black leather jacket, biker’s boots and a black wool hat. Of course he had a motorcycle. BJ wanted to be a “method” actor and Brando was his idol.
“Yeah … YEAH” Corso said, “Brando is shooting ‘THE YOUNG LIONS’ outside Paris, Let’s go out there and dig him.”
“I’m for that,” said Little Jerry who also was an actor. “Me too” came from the rest of us.
“OK, I’ll set it up” … As she said it I could see Claude’s brain excited with the thought of BJ confronting Brando. BJ had once bit the finger of Errol Flynn who was jabbing it into the air in front of his face. But that’s another story.
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Taoist Tales….

“The Innkeeper”
Then the innkeeper said “Tell us the tale of an innkeeper.”

And Ming began the tale of an innkeeper.
Old Innkeeper Huan climbed up, scaled down, sidestepped, parried, and leaped over boxes upon boxes of books to reach the counter.

“I’ve been here for fifteen minutes, watching you leap around the room like a frog in a patch of lily pads. What are in these boxes?” the weary traveler asked. Old Innkeeper Huan lifted his hands off his knees and took three deep breaths. He put one elbow onto the faded wooden counter and wrung the sweat from both eyebrows with his finger before answering.
“The… Inn… records,” was all he could manage to say before passing out. The traveler caught him just before his head hit the wooden, splintered counter. He sat Old Innkeeper Huan in a nearby chair and woke him up with a swift slap to the face.
“What are in these records, Innkeeper?”
A broad smile spread across his wrinkled face.
“For the past 235 years, I’ve jotted down every face that’s passed through these doors. Every article of clothing they’ve worn, every bag they’ve carried, every remark said in this inn is in those books.”
The traveler shook a laugh out of his belly and walked to a box, lifting the cover and pulling out a handful of papers. They slowly crumbled in his hands and blew around the room like desert sand. A piece landed on Old Innkeeper Huan’s shoe. All he could make out was the date.
“That page was 170 years old. I remember the day well. A short, stocky man in a blue shirt stayed in room three. He asked for three pots of tea, and not even a thank you! He ended up staying four nights, paying for only three.”
The traveler’s eyes widened.
“How good is your memory, innkeeper?” he asked.

A broad smile again spread across his wrinkled face.
“I can describe every man, woman, and child that has ever crossed through these doors. Every article of clothing, every bag they’ve carried, every remark they’ve said.”

The traveler smiled at the old man, carefully picked up another page and pointed to the first paragraph.
“These words exist because of meaning. If you have the meaning, you can forget the words on the page. These words are useless to a man with a memory like yours.”
The traveler got rid of the boxes and was allowed to stay in the inn for as long as he wished, free of charge.

—-
“Three Sages”

Then the village leader said “tell us the tale of a leader.”
And Ming began the tale of a leader.
Emperor Ming threw a large celebration for his 150th birthday, inviting every man, woman, and child from every province his messengers could reach. Anxious to understand the meaning of life before his death, he saved three seats at the head of the table for the three sages of Asia: Confucius, Buddha, and Lao Tzu. As they walked through the large iron doors to greet the Emperor, he observed every detail of their behavior.
The first to come was Confucius. Following closely behind him was a young boy holding a large candle. Confucius took five steps, bowed his head, and stopped. The young boy circled around Confucius seventeen times while chanting of filial piety. Confucius took another five steps, bowed his head, and stopped. Again, the young boy circled around Confucius seventeen times while chanting of filial piety. The Emperor, tired of waiting for Confucius to reach him, asked what he was doing.
“It is the ritual for greeting emperors such as yourself. Without these rituals, there would be no order. Without order, life would consist entirely of chaos.”
Emperor Ming frowned as Confucius took another five steps, bowed his head, and stopped. As the young boy circled around Confucius chanting of filial piety, he fell asleep. An hour later, he awoke to find Confucius grabbing the backs of his knees while hitting his head against the back of a chair. Seeing the Emperor’s confused face, he explained:
“It is the ritual for sitting at an elegant feast.”

Confucius continued to grab the backs of his knees while hitting his head against the back of a chair as Emperor Ming called in Buddha and Lao Tzu. Both walked through the large iron doors, bowed to the emperor, and took their seats. The emperor called for the first course, and soon hundreds of servants came bearing bowls of rice topped with a rich, creamy ginger sauce.

Emperor Ming looked up from eating to see Buddha scraping off the ginger sauce and flinging it into Confucius’ hair. Confused, the emperor asked Buddha if there was something wrong with the sauce.
“It is too delicious. Another bite and I would have become attached to it.”
Emperor Ming, disappointed in two of his guests, looked to Lao Tzu, who quietly ate his bowl of rice, a subtle smile visible on his lips. When he finished, Lao Tzu took a spoon and scraped the creamy ginger sauce out of Confucius’ hair, adding it to the bowl of soup placed before him, and began to eat. Confused, Emperor Ming made eye contact with Lao Tzu, to which he only smiled.
“Do you have no rituals to perform between meals?” the emperor asked.
Lao Tzu shook his head.
“And are you not worried about becoming attached to this wonderful meal?”
Lao Tzu again shook his head.
“Then tell me, Lao Tzu, what is the meaning of life?”

Lao Tzu shrugged his shoulders and continued eating.
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Poetry For Deep Summer – Tu Fu

A View of Taishan
What shall I say of the Great Peak? —

The ancient dukedoms are everywhere green,

Inspired and stirred by the breath of creation,

With the Twin Forces balancing day and night.

…I bare my breast toward opening clouds,

I strain my sight after birds flying home.

When shall I reach the top and hold

All mountains in a single glance?

–
Gazing at the Great Mount
To what shall I compare

The Sacred Mount that stands,

A balk of green that hath no end,

Betwixt two lands!

Nature did fuse and blend

All mystic beauty there,

Where Dark and Light

Do dusk and dawn unite.
Gazing, soul-cleansed, at Thee

From clouds upsprung, one may

Mark with wide eyes the homing flight

Of birds. Some day

Must I thy topmost height

Mount, at one glance to see

Hills numberless

Dwindle to nothingness.

–
To my retired friend Wei
It is almost as hard for friends to meet

As for the morning and evening stars.

Tonight then is a rare event,

Joining, in the candlelight,

Two men who were young not long ago

But now are turning grey at the temples.
…To find that half our friends are dead

Shocks us, burns our hearts with grief.

We little guessed it would be twenty years

Before I could visit you again.

When I went away, you were still unmarried;

But now these boys and girls in a row

Are very kind to their father’s old friend.
They ask me where I have been on my journey;

And then, when we have talked awhile,

They bring and show me wines and dishes,

Spring chives cut in the night-rain

And brown rice cooked freshly a special way.
…My host proclaims it a festival,
He urges me to drink ten cups —

But what ten cups could make me as drunk

As I always am with your love in my heart?

…Tomorrow the mountains will separate us;

After tomorrow-who can say?

–
A Spring View
Though a country be sundered, hills and rivers endure;

And spring comes green again to trees and grasses

Where petals have been shed like tears

And lonely birds have sung their grief.

… After the war-fires of three months,

One message from home is worth a ton of gold.

… I stroke my white hair. It has grown too thin

To hold the hairpins any more.

–
Restless Night
As bamboo chill drifts into the bedroom,

Moonlight fills every corner of our

Garden. Heavy dew beads and trickles.

Stars suddenly there, sparse, next aren’t.
Fireflies in dark flight flash. Waking

Waterbirds begin calling, one to another.

All things caught between shield and sword,

All grief empty, the clear night passes.

–
Alone in her Beauty
Who is lovelier than she?

Yet she lives alone in an empty valley.

She tells me she came from a good family

Which is humbled now into the dust.

…When trouble arose in the Kuan district,

Her brothers and close kin were killed.

What use were their high offices,

Not even shielding their own lives? —
The world has but scorn for adversity;

Hope goes out, like the light of a candle.

Her husband, with a vagrant heart,

Seeks a new face like a new piece of jade;
And when morning-glories furl at night

And mandarin-ducks lie side by side,

All he can see is the smile of the new love,

While the old love weeps unheard.
The brook was pure in its mountain source,

But away from the mountain its waters darken.

…Waiting for her maid to come from selling pearls

For straw to cover the roof again,
She picks a few flowers, no longer for her hair,

And lets pine-needles fall through her fingers,

And, forgetting her thin silk sleeve and the cold,

She leans in the sunset by a tall bamboo.

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Tu Fu or Du Fu Biography
Born into a scholarly family, Du Fu received a traditional Confucian education but failed in the imperial examinations of 735. As a result, he spent much of his youth traveling. During his travels he won renown as a poet and met other poets of the period, including the great Li Bai. After a brief flirtation with Daoism while traveling with Li Bai, Du Fu returned to the capital and to the conventional Confucianism of his youth. He never again met Li Bai, despite his strong admiration for his older, freewheeling contemporary.During the 740s Du Fu was a well-regarded member of a group of high officials, even though he was without money and official position himself and failed a second time in an imperial examination. He married, probably in 741. Between 751 and 755 he tried to attract imperial attention by submitting a succession of literary products that were couched in a language of ornamental flattery, a device that eventually resulted in a nominal position at court. In 755 during An Lushan’s rebellion, Du Fu experienced extreme personal hardships. He escaped, however, and in 757 joined the exiled court, being given the position of censor. His memoranda to the emperor do not appear to have been particularly welcome; he was eventually relieved of his post and endured another period of poverty and hunger. Wandering about until the mid-760s, he briefly served a local warlord, a position that enabled him to acquire some land and to become a gentleman farmer, but in 768 he again started traveling aimlessly toward the south. Popular legend attributes his death (on a riverboat on the Xiang River) to overindulgence in food and wine after a 10-day fast.Du Fu’s early poetry celebrated the beauty of the natural world and bemoaned the passage of time. He soon began to write bitingly of war—as in “Bingqu xing” (“The Ballad of the Army Carts”), a poem about conscription—and with hidden satire—as in “Liren xing” (“The Beautiful Woman”), which speaks of the conspicuous luxury of the court. As he matured, and especially during the tumultuous period of 755 to 759, his verse began to sound a note of profound compassion for humanity caught in the grip of senseless war.Du Fu’s paramount position in the history of Chinese literature rests on his superb classicism. He was highly erudite, and his intimate acquaintance with the literary tradition of the past was equaled only by his complete ease in handling the rules of prosody. His dense, compressed language makes use of all the connotative overtones of a phrase and of all the intonational potentials of the individual word, qualities that no translation can ever reveal. He was an expert in all poetic genres current in his day, but his mastery was at its height in the lüshi, or “regulated verse,” which he refined to a point of glowing intensity.

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These Guys out do Prince doing Prince… very clever, and a real sense of vision. I expect some miracles down the road!

Empire Of The Sun!

Eclipse

Standing on the Shore

Walking On A Dream

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I am fully qualified to work as a doorkeeper, and for this reason:

What is inside me, I don’t let out:

What is outside me, I don’t let in.

If someone comes in, he goes right out again.

He has nothing to do with me at all.

I am a Doorkeeper of the Heart, not a lump of wet clay.

– Rabia al Basri

Juggling, juggling, juggling so many balls. It’s a dance of dyslexic proportions. I am stretched pretty thin. +Must-Learn-To-Prioritize+ I seem to be over committed at this point. It is a learning experience, the one that never ends or so it seems. Along with the summer heat, it seems that everything has quickened. Swimming through the seas of information, relying on the innate pattern recognition that has guided me, often brings me up short. Within the seething chaos are discreet patterns of beauty. I have to start writing it all down again so there is a semblance of order, and that I complete what I dedicate my energies too. I have a canvas down stairs that has been screaming at me, and the Invisible College as well. Soonish?
The Weather: We are heading into the hot zone at this point. 103f/39.4c … Ack. I will maintain a cheerful face, heaven knows this isn’t the first time. I melt… I melt… I am trying the positive approach. Water the plants, watch them grow, realize it is part of a greater cycle, yada yada yada. I am melting regardless of the smiley face bs.

—

Rowan is taking off to Seattle for a week of filming for his internship. He has been living on stim-drinks, and burritos for 3 weeks now. He is learning bunches, and the whole experience seems to be pretty positive. It has been fun watching him adapt to the new situation of working with professionals. A world of difference. It seems every year that he makes a leap just before the birthday. One leap he is making is probably out of the house when Fall Term begins. He is applying for student housing. Empty Nesters! I have designs on his room…. 80)

—

The Fool: Long one of my favourite cards in the Tarot, I find it is almost a talisman at times. Why is life such a blundering affair that constantly accelerates towards a wall of chaos? How is it that one opens ones mouth and demons fly out, speaking the un-sayable, and making one bray like an ass?
The blessed moment: To find ones self constantly stepping off of the edge, and seemingly always saved by some form of grace. I would but ask a bit more of indulgence, as I muddle through this patch with my usual blinders. I am a process. Imperfect, and bouncing off walls. Nothing is final until the last call. Maybe I will figure it out. Maybe I will move with a sense of ease, and a lack of trepidation. I have been blessed I imagine with a cornucopian vision.
Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

Where The Wild Things Are…

3 BIG Mistakes

Coming Soon -DMT The Movie Part 1 & 2

Magazine – Definitive Gaze

Hildegard Quotes

The Fool Of The World And The Flying Ship

Rabia al Basri Poems…

Fool’s Quotes

Magazine – The Light Pours Out Of Me

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All in anticipation of this:Where The Wild Things Are…

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The Links:
We Slip Away… Slip Away…

Clothed In Bees

The Marijuana Mine…

The Tiniest Ancestors Tracks In Ancient Times…

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3 BIG Mistakes
A DMT injection turns into a “hellish” experience

“I had been up for three days and two nights working on a manuscript. That was the first mistake. The room where the “experiment” was to take place was a dirty, dingy, insanely cluttered pest hole. That was the second mistake. I was told that I would see God. That was the third and worst mistake of all.
“The needle jabbed into my arm and the dimethyl-tryptamine oozed into my bloodstream. At the same time the steam came on with a rhythmic clamor and I remember thinking that it would be nice to have some heat. Within thirty seconds I noticed a change, or rather I noticed that there had never been any change, that I had been in this dreamy unworldly state for millions of years. I told this to Dr.–. who said, “Good, then it is beginning to cross the blood-brain barrier.”
“It was too fast. Much too fast. I looked up at what a minute ago had been doors and cabinets, and all I could see were parallel lines falling away into absurdities. Dimensions were outraged. The geometry of things crashed blindly into one another and crumbled into chaos. I thought to myself, “But he said that I would see God, that I would know the meaning of the universe.” I closed my eyes. Perhaps God was there, behind my eyeballs.
“Something was there, all right; Something, coming at me from a distant and empty horizon. At first it was a pinpoint, then it was a smudge, and then–a formless growing Shape. A sound accompanied its progress towards me–a rising, rhythmic, metallic whine; a staccato meeyow that was issuing from a diamond larynx. And then, there it loomed before me, a devastating horror, a cosmic diamond cat. It filled the sky, it filled all space. There was nowhere to go. It was all that was. There was no other place for me in this–Its universe. I felt leveled under the cruel glare of its crystalline brilliance. My mind, my body, my vestige of self-esteem perished in the hard glint of its diamond cells.
“It moved in rhythmic spasms like some demonic toy; and always there was its voice–a steely, shrill monotony that put an end to hope. There should not be such a voice! It ravaged the nerves and passed its spasms into my head to echo insanely from one dark corridor of my mind to another. Me-e-e-e-yow~ow-ow-ow me~e~yow-ow-ow-ow me-e-e-e-yow-ow-ow-ow–the incessant, insatiable staccato went on. It would not have been so bad if it had just been diabolical noise. The chilling thing was that I knew what it was saying! It told me that I was a wretched, pulpy, flaccid thing; a squishy-squashy worm. I was a thing of soft entrails and slimy fluids and was abhorrent to the calcified God.
“I opened my eyes and jumped up from my chair screaming: ‘I will not have you! I will not have such a God! What is the antidote to this? Give me the antidote!’ But as I said this I doubted my own question for it seemed to me that this was the only reality I had ever known, the one I was born with and the one I would die with. There was no future beyond this state of mind, there was no state of mind beyond this one.
“‘There is no antidote,’ said Dr.–. ‘Relax, it’s only been three minutes. You’ve got at least twenty-five more minutes still to go.’
“I looked around the room. The seething symmetry had calmed down some. Instead of evoking terror it merely made one seasick now. ‘Euclidian nausea,’ I thought, and closed my eyes again. I found myself on a small planet of a distant star. A spaceship built like an amoeba reached with long tentacles out to grab me. The center of the space ship was diaphanous like an embryo’s head with a network of blue veins, flowing blood, and shifting cellular wastes. It pulsed and pulsed and whirred and cackled. I did not wish to be a part of this protoplasmic blob although it was far cheerier than the first vision, and so, as its tentacles were about to enclose me, I opened my eyes and escaped its interstellar plans for me. By this time I was learning how to manage–or should I say Escape from–the experience. I thought that I would start to call my own shots, find my own planet.
“I closed my eyes again to discover a world of blue horses. The land heaved gently and the necks and heads of stately blue horses rose and fell as waves on the planet’s surface. It was a land of perfect peace, a blue equine paradise.
“But still I hadn’t seen the face of God! I would make a final effort at ultimate visions. My eyes closed and I found myself looking through one end of an immensely long cylinder. At first, there was nothing at the other end–a trillion miles away. Then God came and peeked in at me. I burst out laughing.
“The face of God staring at me from the other end of the cylinder was the face of a very wise monkey!”
Concerning this case it may be superfluous to remark that the subject should not be told she is going to “see God” or discover “the meaning of the universe.” Yet more than one researcher and therapist we know of has done this sort of thing repeatedly, and probably never with benefit to the subject or patient. Medical doctors no less than other kinds of workers with psychedelic drugs have promised visions of God, revelations of Ultimate Truth, and so on. And for the self-anointed psychedelic priest, it seems to be just a small further step to assuming the role of God Himself! Sidney Cohen and others have warned about this danger–the threat that an unaccustomed power will corrupt the guide with resulting damage to the subjects, and possibly even greater damage to the guide himself. This, as we also have observed, is a real danger; but psychiatrists have no immunity to the disease and they go astray when advancing such a hazard as a basis for restricting all work with psycho-chemicals to themselves. There exists not a shred of evidence to indicate that the limiting of guiding to one or a few professions will do anything at all to eliminate abuses of power and corruption by power.
R.E.L. Masters and Jean Houston, The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience, pp.163-164)

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Coming Soon… DMT, The Movie…
DMT – The Spirit Molecule 1

DMT – The Spirit Molecule 2

More to come…. I am sure…..

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Magazine – Definitive Gaze

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Hildegard Quotes:

– “The mystery of God holds you in its all-encompassing arms.”

– “No creature has meaning without the Word of God. God’s Word is in all creation, visible and invisible. The Word is living, being, spirit, all verdant greening, all creativity. This Word flashes out in every creature. This is how the spirit is in the flesh—the Word is indivisible from God.”

– “Listen: there was once a king sitting on his throne. Around him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory, bearing the banners of the king with great honor. Then it pleased the king to raise a small feather from the ground, and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not because of anything in itself but because the air bore it along. Thus am I, a feather on the breath of God.”

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The Fool Of The World And The Flying Ship

There were once upon a time an old peasant and his wife, and they had three sons. Two of them were clever young men who could borrow money without being cheated, but the third was the Fool of the World. He was as simple as a child, simpler than some children, and he never did any one a harm in his life.
Well, it always happens like that. The father and mother thought a lot of the two smart young men; but the Fool of the World was lucky if he got enough to eat, because they always forgot him unless they happened to be looking at him, and sometimes even then.
But however it was with his father and mother, this is a story that shows that God loves simple folk, and turns things to their advantage in the end. For it happened that the Tzar of that country sent out messengers along the highroads and the rivers, even to huts in the forest like ours, to say that he would give his daughter, the Princess, in marriage to any one who could bring him a flying ship–ay, a ship with wings, that should sail this way and that through the blue sky, like a ship sailing on the sea.
“This is a chance for us,” said the two clever brothers; and that same day they set off together, to see if one of them could not build the flying ship and marry the Tzar’s daughter, and so be a great man indeed.
And their father blessed them, and gave them finer clothes than ever he wore himself. And their mother made them up hampers of food for the road, soft white rolls, and several kinds of cooked meats, and bottles of corn brandy. She went with them as far as the highroad, and waved her hand to them till they were out of sight. And so the two clever brothers set merrily off on their adventure, to see what could be done with their cleverness. And what happened to them I do not know, for they were never heard of again.
The Fool of the World saw them set off, with their fine parcels of food, and their fine clothes, and their bottles of corn brandy.
“Stupid fellow,” says his mother, “what’s the good of your going? Why, if you were to stir from the house you would walk into the arms of a bear; and if not that, then the wolves would eat you before you had finished staring at them.”
But the Fool of the World would not be held back by words.
“I am going,” says he. “I am going. I am going. I am going.”
He went on saying this over and over again, till the old woman his mother saw there was nothing to be done, and was glad to get him out of the house so as to be quit of the sound of his voice. So she put some food in a bag for him to eat by the way. She put in the bag some crusts of dry black bread and a flask of water. She did not even bother to go as far as the footpath to see him on his way. She saw the last of him at the door of the hut, and he had not taken two steps before she had gone back into the hut to see to more important business. No matter. The Fool of the World set off with his bag over his shoulder, singing as he went, for he was off to seek his fortune and marry the Tzar’s daughter. He was sorry his mother had not given him any corn brandy; but he sang merrily for all that. He would have liked white rolls instead of the dry black crusts; but, after all, the main thing on a journey is to have something to eat. So he trudged merrily along the road, and sang because the trees were green and there was a blue sky overhead.
He had not gone very far when he met an ancient old man with a bent back, and a long beard, and eyes hidden under his bushy eyebrows.
“Good-day, young fellow,” says the ancient old man.
“Good-day, grandfather,” says the Fool of the World.
“And where are you off to?” says the ancient old man.
“What!” says the Fool; “haven’t you heard? The Tzar is going to give his daughter to any one who can bring him a flying ship.”
“And you can really make a flying ship?” says the ancient old man.
“No, I do not know how.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“God knows,” says the Fool of the World.
“Well,” says the ancient, “if things are like that, sit you down here. We will rest together and have a bite of food. Bring out what you have in your bag.”
“I am ashamed to offer you what I have here. It is good enough for me, but it is not the sort of meal to which one can ask guests.”
“Never mind that. Out with it. Let us eat what God has given.”
The Fool of the World opened his bag, and could hardly believe his eyes. Instead of black crusts he saw fresh white rolls and cooked meats. He handed them out to the ancient, who said, “You see how God loves simple folk. Although your own mother does not love you, you have not been done out of your share of the good things. Let’s have a sip at the corn brandy….”
The Fool of the World opened his flask, and instead of water there came out corn brandy, and that of the best. So the Fool and the ancient made merry, eating and drinking; and when they had done, and sung a song or two together, the ancient says to the Fool,–
“Listen to me. Off with you into the forest. Go up to the first big tree you see. Make the sacred sign of the cross three times before it. Strike it a blow with your little hatchet. Fall backwards on the ground, and lie there, full length on your back, until somebody wakes you up. Then you will find the ship made, all ready to fly. Sit you down in it, and fly off whither you want to go. But be sure on the way to give a lift to everyone you meet.”
The Fool of the World thanked the ancient old man, said good-bye to him, and went off to the forest. He walked up to a tree, the first big tree he saw, made the sign of the cross three times before it, swung his hatchet round his head, struck a mighty blow on the trunk of the tree, instantly fell backwards flat on the ground, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.
A little time went by, and it seemed to the Fool as he slept that somebody was jogging his elbow. He woke up and opened his eyes. His hatchet, worn out, lay beside him. The big tree was gone, and in its place there stood a little ship, ready and finished. The Fool did not stop to think. He jumped into the ship, seized the tiller, and sat down. Instantly the ship leapt up into the air, and sailed away over the tops of the trees.
The little ship answered the tiller as readily as if she were sailing in water, and the Fool steered for the highroad, and sailed along above it, for he was afraid of losing his way if he tried to steer a course across the open country.
He flew on and on, and looked down, and saw a man lying in the road below him with his ear on the damp ground.
“Good-day to you, uncle,” cried the Fool.
“Good-day to you, Sky-fellow,” cried the man.
“What are you doing down there?” says the Fool.
“I am listening to all that is being done in the world.”
“Take your place in the ship with me.”
The man was willing enough, and sat down in the ship with the Fool, and they flew on together singing songs.
They flew on and on, and looked down, and there was a man on one leg, with the other tied up to his head.
“Good-day, uncle,” says the Fool, bringing the ship to the ground. “Why are you hopping along on one foot?”
“If I were to untie the other I should move too fast. I should be stepping across the world in a single stride.”
“Sit down with us,” says the Fool.
The man sat down with them in the ship, and they flew on together singing songs. They flew on and on, and lo
oked down, and there was a man with a gun, and he was taking aim, but what he was aiming at they could not see.
“Good health to you, uncle,” says the Fool. “But what are you shooting at? There isn’t a bird to be seen.”
“What!” says the man. “If there were a bird that you could see, I should not shoot at it. A bird or a beast a thousand versts away, that’s the sort of mark for me.”
“Take your seat with us,” says the Fool.
The man sat down with them in the ship, and they flew on together. Louder and louder rose their songs.
They flew on and on, and looked down, and there was a man carrying a sack full of bread on his back.
“Good health to you, uncle,” says the Fool, sailing down. “And where are you off to?”
“I am going to get bread for my dinner.”
“But you’ve got a full sack on your back.”
“That–that little scrap! Why, that’s not enough for a single mouthful.”
“Take your seat with us,” says the Fool.
The Eater sat down with them in the ship, and they flew on together, singing louder than ever. They flew on and on, and looked down, and there was a man walking round and round a lake.
“Good health to you, uncle,” says the Fool. “What are you looking for?”
“I want a drink, and I can’t find any water.”
“But there’s a whole lake in front of your eyes. Why can’t you take a drink from that?”
“That little drop!” says the man. “Why, there’s not enough water there to wet the back of my throat if I were to drink it at one gulp.”
“Take your seat with us,” says the Fool.
The Drinker sat down with them, and again they flew on, singing in chorus.
They flew on and on, and looked down, and there was a man walking towards the forest, with a fagot of wood on his shoulders.
“Good-day to you, uncle,” says the Fool. “Why are you taking wood to the forest?”
“This isn’t simple wood,” says the man.
“What is it, then?” says the Fool.
“If it is scattered about, a whole army of soldiers leaps up out of the ground.”
“There’s a place for you with us,” says the Fool.
The man sat down with them, and the ship rose up into the air, and flew on, carrying its singing crew. They flew on and on, and looked down, and there was a man carrying a sack of straw.
“Good health to you, uncle,” says the Fool; “and where are you taking your straw?”
“To the village.”
“Why, are they short of straw in your village?”
“No; but this is such straw that if you scatter it abroad in the very hottest of the summer, instantly the weather turns cold, and there is snow and frost.”
“There’s a place here for you too,” says the Fool.
“Very kind of you,” says the man, and steps in and sits down, and away they all sail together, singing like to burst their lungs.
They did not meet any one else, and presently came flying up to the palace of the Tzar. They flew down and cast anchor in the courtyard.
Just then the Tzar was eating his dinner. He heard their loud singing, and looked out of the window and saw the ship come sailing down into his courtyard. He sent his servant out to ask who was the great prince who had brought him the flying ship, and had come sailing down with such a merry noise of singing. The servant came up to the ship, and saw the Fool of the World and his companions sitting there cracking jokes. He saw they were all moujiks, simple peasants, sitting in the ship; so he did not stop to ask questions, but came back quietly and told the Tzar that there were no gentlemen in the ship at all, but only a lot of dirty peasants.
Now the Tzar was not at all pleased with the idea of giving his only daughter in marriage to a simple peasant, and he began to think how he could get out of his bargain. Thinks he to himself, “I’ll set them such tasks that they will not be able to perform, and they’ll be glad to get off with their lives, and I shall get the ship for nothing.”
So he told his servant to go to the Fool and tell him that before the Tzar had finished his dinner the Fool was to bring him some of the magical water of life.
Now, while the Tzar was giving this order to his servant, the Listener, the first of the Fool’s companions, was listening, and heard the words of the Tzar and repeated them to the Fool.
“What am I to do now?” says the Fool, stopping short in his jokes. “In a year, in a whole century, I never could find that water. And he wants it before he has finished his dinner.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” says the Swift-goer, “I’ll deal with that for you.”
The servant came and announced the Tzar’s command.
“Tell him he shall have it,” says the Fool.
His companion, the Swift-goer, untied his foot from beside his head, put it to the ground, wriggled it a little to get the stiffness out of it, ran off, and was out of sight almost before he had stepped from the ship. Quicker than I can tell it you in words he had come to the water of life, and put some of it in a bottle.
“I shall have plenty of time to get back,” thinks he, and down he sits under a windmill and goes off to sleep.
The royal dinner was coming to an end, and there wasn’t a sign of him. There were no songs and no jokes in the flying ship. Everybody was watching for the Swift-goer, and thinking he would not be in time.
The Listener jumped out and laid his right ear to the damp ground, listened a moment, and said, “What a fellow! He has gone to sleep under the windmill. I can hear him snoring. And there is a fly buzzing with its wings, perched on the windmill close above his head.”
“This is my affair,” says the Far-shooter, and he picked up his gun from between his knees, aimed at the fly on the windmill, and woke the Swift-goer with the thud of the bullet on the wood of the mill close by his head. The Swift-goer leapt up and ran, and in less than a second had brought the magic water of life and given it to the Fool. The Fool gave it to the servant, who took it to the Tzar. The Tzar had not yet left the table, so that his command had been fulfilled as exactly as ever could be.
“What fellows these peasants are,” thought the Tzar. “There is nothing for it but to set them another task.” So the Tzar said to his servant, “Go to the captain of the flying ship and give him this message: ‘If you are such a cunning fellow, you must have a good appetite. Let you and your companions eat at a single meal twelve oxen roasted whole, and as much bread as can be baked in forty ovens!’”
The Listener heard the message, and told the Fool what was coming. The Fool was terrified, and said, “I can’t get through even a single loaf at a sitting.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said the Eater. “It won’t be more than a mouthful for me, and I shall be glad to have a little snack in place of my dinner.” The servant came, and announced the Tzar’s command.
“Good,” says the Fool. “Send the food along, and we’ll know what to do with it.”
So they brought twelve oxen roasted whole, and as much bread as could be baked in forty ovens, and the companions had scarcely sat down to the meal before the Eater had finished the lot.
“Why,” said the Eater, “what a little! They might have given us a decent meal while they were about it.”
The Tzar told his servant to tell the Fool that he and his companions were to drink forty barrels of wine, with forty bucketfuls in every barrel.
The Listener told the Fool what message was coming.
“Why,” says the Fool, “I never in my life drank more than one bucket at a time.”
“Don’t worry,” says the Drinker. “You forget that I am thirsty. It’ll be nothing of a drink for me.”
They brought the forty barrels of wine, and tapped them, and the Drinker tossed them down one after another, one gulp for each barrel. “Little enough,” says he, “Why, I am thirsty still.” “Very good,” says the Tzar to his servant, when he heard that they had eaten all the food and drunk all the wine. “Tell the fellow to get ready for the wedding, and let him go and bathe himself in the bath-house. But let the bathhouse be made so hot that the man will stifle and frizzle as soon as he sets foot inside. It is an iron bath-house. Let it be made red hot.”
The Listener heard all this and told the Fool, who stopped short with his mouth open in the middle of a joke.
“Don’t you worry,” says the moujik with the straw.
Well, they made the bath-house red hot, and called the Fool, and the Fool went along to the bath-house to wash himself, and with him went the moujik with the straw.
They shut them both into the bath-house, and thought that that was the end of them. But the moujik scattered his straw before them as they went in, and it became so cold in there that the Fool of the World had scarcely time to wash himself before the water in the cauldrons froze to solid ice. They lay down on the very stove itself, and spent the night there, shivering. In the morning the servants opened the bathhouse, and there were the Fool of the World and the moujik, alive and well, lying on the stove and singing songs.
They told the Tzar, and the Tzar raged with anger. “There is no getting rid of this fellow,” says he. “But go and tell him that I send him this message: ‘If you are to marry my daughter, you must show that you are able to defend her. Let me see that you have at least a regiment of soldiers,’” Thinks he to himself, “How can a simple peasant raise a troop? He will find it hard enough to raise a single soldier.”
The Listener told the Fool of the World, and the Fool began to lament. “This time,” says he, “I am done indeed. You, my brothers, have saved me from misfortune more than once, but this time, alas, there is nothing to be done.”
“Oh, what a fellow you are!” says the peasant with the fagot of wood. “I suppose you’ve forgotten about me. Remember that I am the man for this little affair, and don’t you worry about it at all.”
The Tzar’s servant came along and gave his message.
“Very good,” says the Fool; “but tell the Tzar that if after this he puts me off again, I’ll make war on his country, and take the Princess by force.” And then, as the servant went back with the message, the whole crew on the flying ship set to their singing again, and sang and laughed and made jokes as if they had not a care in the world.
During the night, while the others slept, the peasant with the fagot of wood went hither and thither, scattering his sticks. Instantly where they fell there appeared a gigantic army. Nobody could count the number of soldiers in it–cavalry, foot soldiers, yes, and guns, and all the guns new and bright, and the men in the finest uniforms that ever were seen.
In the morning, as the Tzar woke and looked from the windows of the palace, he found himself surrounded by troops upon troops of soldiers, and generals in cocked hats bowing in the courtyard and taking orders from the Fool of the World, who sat there joking with his companions in the flying ship. Now it was the Tzar’s turn to be afraid. As quickly as he could he sent his servants to the Fool with presents of rich jewels and fine clothes, invited him to come to the palace, and begged him to marry the Princess.
The Fool of the World put on the fine clothes, and stood there as handsome a young man as a princess could wish for a husband. He presented himself before the Tzar, fell in love with the Princess and he with him, married her the same day, received with her a rich dowry, and became so clever that all the court repeated everything he said. The Tzar and the Tzaritza liked him very much, and as for the Princess, she loved him to distraction.

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Some of these are complete, others are fragments that have come down through time to grace us with their existence.

Rabia al Basri Poems…

Reality
In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.

Speech is born out of longing,

True description from the real taste.

The one who tastes, knows;

the one who explains, lies.

How can you describe the true form of Something

In whose presence you are blotted out?

And in whose being you still exist?

And who lives as a sign for your journey?

—
Dream Fable
I saw myself in a wide green garden, more beautiful than I could begin to understand. In this garden was a young girl. I said to her, “How wonderful this place is!”
“Would you like to see a place even more wonderful than this?” she asked.
“Oh yes,” I answered. Then taking me by the hand, she led me on until we came to a magnificent palace, like nothing that was ever seen by human eyes. The young girl knocked on the door, and someone opened it. Immediately both of us were flooded with light.
Only Allah knows the inner meaning of the maidens we saw living there. Each one carried in her hand a serving-tray filled with light. The young girl asked the maidens where they were going, and they answered her, “We are looking for someone who was drowned in the sea, and so became a martyr. She never slept at night, not one wink! We are going to rub funeral spices on her body.”
“Then rub some on my friend here,” the young girl said.
“Once upon a time,” said the maidens, “part of this spice and the fragrance of it clung to her body — but then she shied away.”
Quickly the young girl let go of my hand, turned, and said to me:
“Your prayers are your light;

Your devotion is your strength;

Sleep is the enemy of both.

Your life is the only opportunity that life can give you.

If you ignore it, if you waste it,

You will only turn to dust.”
Then the young girl disappeared.

—
My Beloved
My peace, O my brothers and sisters, is my solitude,

And my Beloved is with me always,

For His love I can find no substitute,

And His love is the test for me among mortal beings,

Whenever His Beauty I may contemplate,

He is my “mihrab”, towards Him is my “qiblah”

If I die of love, before completing satisfaction,

Alas, for my anxiety in the world, alas for my distress,

O Healer (of souls) the heart feeds upon its desire,

The striving after union with Thee has healed my soul,

O my Joy and my Life abidingly,

You were the source of my life and from Thee also came my ecstasy.

I have separated myself from all created beings,

My hope is for union with Thee, for that is the goal of my desire…

—
My Greatest Need Is You
Your hope in my heart is the rarest treasure

Your Name on my tongue is the sweetest word

My choicest hours

Are the hours I spend with You –

O Allah, I can’t live in this world

Without remembering You–

How can I endure the next world

Without seeing Your face?

I am a stranger in Your country

And lonely among Your worshippers:

This is the substance of my complaint.

—
O God, Whenever I listen to the voice of anything

You have made—

The rustling of the trees

The trickling of water

The cries of birds

The flickering of shadow

The roar of the wind

The song of the thunder, I hear it saying:

“God is One! Nothing can be compared with God!”

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Magazine – The Light Pours Out Of Me….

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Fool’s Quotes

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

– William Shakespeare
Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.

– Albert Einstein
Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain – and most fools do.

– Dale Carnegie
The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.

– Epicurus
The serpent, the king, the tiger, the stinging wasp, the small child, the dog owned by other people, and the fool: these seven ought not to be awakened from sleep.

– Chanakya
A fool and his money are soon elected.

– Will Rogers

In The Poetry Shrine:
Drink Your Tea
Drink your tea slowly and reverently,

as if it is the axis

on which the world earth revolves

– slowly, evenly, without

rushing toward the future;

Live the actual moment.

Only this moment is life.

—
You Are Me
You are me and I am you.

It is obvious that we are inter-are.

You cultivate the flower in

yourself so that I will be beautiful.

I transform the garbage in myself so

that you do not have to suffer.

I support you you support me.

I am here to bring you peace

you are here to bring me joy.

—
Kiss The Earth
Walk and touch peace every moment.

Walk and touch happiness every moment.

Each step brings a fresh breeze.

Each step makes a flower bloom.

Kiss the Earth with your feet.

Bring the Earth your love and happiness.

The Earth will be safe

when we feel safe in ourselves.

—

Be A Bud
Be a bud sitting quietly on the hedge.

Be a smile, one part of wondrous existence.

Stand here. There is no need to depart.
Thich Nhat Hahn

So… it is this. One Poem, one thought slowly changes consciousness. The Bodhisattva comes not as one, but as many. Many, each doing their task, touching others in a collective action of intent.
Wake up, wake up, wake up. There are a million hearts to touch my love. Truly, a million hearts.
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm

Kate Bush – Them Heavy People

“I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.” – Henry David Thoreau
Sunday… late. I have been assembling this over the last couple of days, and found a new poet in the process. Sweet Reward. I think you might like the selections of this entry.
Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

The Links

Solar Fields – The Road To Nothingness

Henry David Thoreau Quotes

The Tale Of The Hashish Eater & The Tale Of Two Hashish Eaters

The Poetry Of Yahia Lababidi

Yahia Lababidi Biography

Solar Fields – Dust

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The Links:

The Easter Island Cave Complex…

Why Won’t God Heal Amputees?

Lightening And The Beginnings Of Life?

Dorset Ridgeway’s Killing Field: Vikings? Locals?

British Pagan Police When Holiday Rites/Rights….

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Solar Fields – The Road To Nothingness (with thanks to Lizard Jah….)

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Henry David Thoreau Quotes:
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.”

“Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.”

“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.”
“Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.”
“Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.”
“Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet.”
“Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.”
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….Then said she, “Know that I mean to pass this night with thee, that I may tell thee what talk I have heard and console thee with stories of many passion-distraughts whom love hath made sick.” “Nay,” quoth he, “Rather tell me a tale that will gladden my heart and gar my cares depart.” “With joy and good will,” answered she; then she took seat by his side (and that poniard under her dress) and began to say: — Know thou that the pleasantest thing my ears ever heard was
The Tale Of THe Hashish Eater
A certain man loved fair women, and spent his substance on them, till he became so poor that nothing remained to him; the world was straitened upon him and he used to go about the market-streets begging his daily bread. Once upon a time as he went along, behold, a bit of iron nail pierced his finger and drew blood; so he sat down and, wiping away the blood, bound up his finger. Then he arose crying out, and fared forwards till he came to a Hammam and entering took off his clothes, and when he looked about him he found it clean and empty. So he sat him down by the fountain-basin, and ceased not pouring water on his head, till he was tired. —- And Sharazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.

When it was the One Hundred and Forty-third Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that the man sat down by the fountain-basin and ceased not pouring water on his head till he was tired. Then he went out to the room in which was the cistern of cold water; and seeing no one there, he found a quiet corner and taking out a piece of Hashísh[1], swallowed it. Presently the fumes mounted to his brain and he rolled over on to the marble floor. Then the Hashish made him fancy that a great lord was shampooing him and that two slaves stood at his head, one bearing a bowl and the other washing gear and all the requisites of the Hammam. When he saw this, he said to himself, “Meseemeth these here be mistaken in me; or else they are of the company of us Hashish-eaters.”[2] Then he stretched out his legs and he imagined that the bathman said to him, “O my master, the time of thy going up to the Palace draweth near and it is to-day thy turn of service.” At this he laughed and said to himself, “As Allah willeth, O Hashish!” Then he sat and said nothing, whilst the bathman arose and took him by the hand and girt his middle with a waist-cloth of black silk, after which the two slaves followed him with the bowls and gear; and they ceased not escorting him till they brought him into a cabinet, wherein they set incense and perfumes a-burning. He found the place full of various kinds of fruits and sweet-scented flowers, and they sliced him a water-melon and seated him on a stool of ebony, whilst the bathman stood to wash him and the slaves poured water on him; after which they rubbed him down well and said, “O our lord, Sir Wazir, health to thee forever!” Then they went out and shut the door on him; and in the vanity of phantasy he arose and removed the waist-cloth from his middle, and laughed till he well nigh fainted. He gave not over laughing for some time and at last quoth he to himself, “What aileth them to address me as if I were a Minister and style me Master, and Sir? Haply they are now blundering; but after an hour they will know me and say, This fellow is a beggar; and will take their fill of cuffing me on the neck.” Presently, feeling hot, he opened the door, whereupon it seemed to him that a little white slave and an eunuch came in to him carrying a parcel. Then the slave opened it and brought out three kerchiefs of silk, one of which he threw over his head, a second over his shoulders, and a third he tied round his waist. Moreover, the eunuch gave him a pair of bath-clogs, and he put them on; after which in came white slaves and eunuchs and supported him (and he laughing the while) to the outer hall, which he found hung and spread with magnificent furniture, such as beseemeth none but kings; and the pages hastened up to him and seated him on the divan. Then they fell to kneading him till sleep overcame him; and he dreamt that he had a girl in his arms. So he kissed her and set her between his thighs; then, sitting to her as a man sitteth to a woman, he took yard in hand and drew her towards him and weighed down upon her and lo! he heard one saying to him, “Awake, thou ne’er-do-well! The noon-hour is come and thou art still asleep.” He opened his eyes and found himself lying on the marge of the cold-water tank, amongst a crowd of people all laughing at him; for his prickle was at point and the napkin had slipped from his middle. So he knew that all this was but a confusion of dreams and an illusion of the Hashish and he was vexed and said to him who had aroused him, “Would thou hadst waited till I had put it in!” Then said the folk, “Art thou not ashamed, O Hashish-eater, to be sleeping stark naked with stiff-standing tool?” And they cuffed him till his neck was red. Now he was starving, yet forsooth he savoured the flavour of pleasure in his dream.
1. The Pers. “Bang”; Indian “Bhang”; Maroccan “Fasúkh” and S. African “Dakhá.” (Pilgrimage i. 64.) I heard of a “Hashish-orgie” in London which ended in half the experimentalists being on their sofas for a week. The drug is useful for stokers, having the curious property of making men insensible to heat. Easterns also use it for “Imsák” prolonging coition, of which I speak presently.

2. Arab. “Hashsháshín;” whence Dr Sacy derived “assassin.” A notable effect of the Hashish preparation is wildly to excite the imagination, a kind of delirium imaginans sive phantasticum

—-

The Tale Of Two Hashish Eaters (Traditional)

From 1001 Arabian Nights
There was once, my lord and crown upon my head, a man in a certain city, who was a fisherman by trade and a hashish-eater by occupation. When he had earned his daily wage, he would spend a little of it on food and the rest on a sufficiency of that hilarious herb. He took his hashish three times a day: once in the morning on an empty stomach, once at noon, and once at sundown. Thus he was never lacking in extravagent gaity. Yet he worked hard enough at his fishing, though sometimes in a very extravagent fashion.
On a certain evening, for instance, when he had taken a larger dose of his favorite drug than usual, he lit a tallow candle and sat in front of it, asking himself eager questions and answering with obliging wit. After some hours of this delight, he became aware of the cool silence of the night about him and the clear light of a full moon abouve his head, and exclaimed affably to himself: “Dear friend, the silent streets and the cool of the moon invite us to a walk. Let us go forth, while all the world is in bed and none may mar our solitary exaltation.” Speaking in this way to himself, the fisherman left his house and began to walk towards the river; but, as he went, he saw the light of the full moon lying in the roadway and took it to be the water of the river. “My dear old friend the fisherman,” he said, “get your line and take the best of the fishing, while your rivals are indoors.” So he ran back and fetched his hook and line, and cast into the glittering patch of moonlight on the road.
Soon an enormous dog, tempted by the smell of the bait, swallowed the hook greedily and then, feeling the barb, made desperate efforts to get loose. The fisherman struggled for some time against this enormous fish, but at last he was pulled over and rolled into the moonlight. Even then he would not let go his line, but held on grimly, uttering frightened cries. “Help, help, good Mussulmans!” he shouted. “Help me to secure this mighty fish, for he is dragging me into the deeps! Help, help, good friends, for I am drowning!” The guards of that quarter ran up at the noise and began laughing at the fisherman’s antics; but when he yelled: “Allah curse you, O sons of bitches! Is it a time to laugh when I am drowning?” they grew angry and, after giving him a sound beating, dragged him into the presence of the kadi.
At this point Shahrazad saw the approach of morning and discreetly fell silent.
BUT WHEN THE SEVEN-HUNDRED-AND-NINETY-EIGHTH NIGHT HAD COME SHE said:
Allah had willed that the kadi should also be addicted to the use of hashish; recognizing that the prisoner was under that jocund influence, he rated the guards soundly and dismissed them. Then he handed over the fisherman to his slaves that they might give him a bed for calm sleep. After a pleasant night and a day given up to the consumption of excellent food, the fisherman was called to the kadi in the evening and received by him like a brother. His host supped with him; and then the two sat opposite the lighted candles and each swallowed enough hashish to destroy a hundred-year-old elephant. When the drug exalted their natural dispositions, they undressed completely and began to dance about, singing and committing a thousand extravagances.
Now it happened that the Sultan and his wazir were walking through the city, disguised as merchants, and heard a strange noise rising from the kadi’s house. They entered through the unlatched door and found two naked men, who stopped dancing at their entrance and welcomed them without the least embarrassment. The Sultan sat down to watch his venerable kadi dance again; but when he saw that the other man had a dark and lively zabb, so long that the eye might not carry to the end of it, he whispered in his wazir’s startled ear: “As Allah lives, our kadi is not as well hung as his guest!” “What are you whispering about?” cried the fisherman. “I am the Sultan of this city and I order you to watch my dance respectfully, otherwise I will have your head cut off. I am the Sultan, this is my wazir; I hold the whole world like a fish in the palm of my right hand.” The Sultan and his wazir realized that they were in the presence of two hashish-eaters, and the wazir, to amuse his master, addressed the fisherman, saying: “How long have you been Sultan, dear master, and can you tell me what has happened to your predecessor?” “I deposed the fellow,” answered the fisherman. “I said: ‘Go Away!’ and he went away.”
“Did he not protest?” asked the wazir.
“Not at all,” replied the fisherman. “He was delighted to be relased from the burden of kingship. He abdicated with such good grace that I keep him by me as a servant. He is an excellent dancer. When he pines for his throne, I tell him stories. Now I want to piss.” So saying, he lifted up his interminable tool and, walking over to the Sultan, seemed to be about to discharge upon him.
“I also want to piss,” exclaimed the kadi, and took up the same threatening position in front of the wazir. The two victims shouted with laughter and fled from that house, crying over their shoulders: “God’s curse on all hashish-eaters!”
Next morning, that the jest might be complete, the Sultan called the kadi and his guest before him. “O discreet pillar of our law,” he said, “I have called you to me because I wish to learn the most convenient manner of pissing. Should one squat and carefully lift the robe, as religion prescribes? Should one stand up, as is the unclean habit of unbelievers? Or should one undress completely and piss against one’s friends, as is the custom of two hashish-eaters of my acquaintance?”
Knowing that the Sultan used to walk about the city in disguise, the kadi realized in a flash the identity of his last night’s visitors, and fell on his knees, crying: “My lord, my lord, the hashish spake in these indelicacies, not I!”
But the fisherman, who by his careful daily taking of the drug was always under its effect, called somewhat sharply: “And what of it? You are in your palace this morning, we were in our palace last night.”
“O sweetest noise in all our kingdom,” answered the delighted King, “as we are both Sultans of this city, I think you had better henceforth stay with me in my palace. If you can tell stories, I trust that you will at once sweeten our hearing with a chosen one.”
“I will do so gladly, as soon as you have pardoned my wazir,” replied the fisherman; so the Sultan bade the kadi rise and sent him back forgiven to his duties.

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The Poetry Of Yahia Lababidi

Cairo
I buried your face, someplace

by the side of the new road

so I would not trip over it

every morning or on evening strolls
still, I am helplessly drawn

to the scene of this crime

for fear of forgetting

the sum of your splendor
then there’s also the rain

that loosens the soil

to reveal a bewitching feature

awash with emotion

an eye, perhaps tender or

a pale, becalmed cheek

a mouth tight with reproach or

lips pursed in a deathless smile
other times you are inscrutable

worse, is when I seem to lose you

and pick at the earth like a scab

frantic, and faithful, like a dog.

—

Clouds
to find the origin,

trace back the manifestations.

Tao
Between being and non-being

barely there

these sails of water, ice, air –
Indifferent drifters, wandering

high on freedom

of the homeless
Restlessly swithering

like ghosts, slithering through substance

in puffs and wisps
Lending an enchanting or ominous air

luminous or casting shadows,

ambivalent filters of reality
Bequeathing wreaths, or

modesty veils to great natural beauties

like mountain peaks
Sometimes simply hanging there

airborne abstract art

in open air
Suspended animation

continually contorting:

great sky whales, now, horse drawn carriages
unpinpointable thought forms,

punctuating the endless sentence of the sky.

—

What do animals dream?
Do they dream of past lives and unlived dreams

unspeakably human or unimaginably bestial?
Do they struggle to catch in their slumber

what is too slippery for the fingers of day?
Are there subtle nocturnal intimations

to illuminate their undreaming hours?
Are they haunted by specters of regret

do they visit their dead in drowsy gratitude?
Or are they revisited by their crimes

transcribed in tantalizing hieroglyphs?
Do they retrace the outline of their wounds

or dream of transformation, instead?
Do they tug at obstinate knots

inassimilable longings and thwarted strivings?
Are there agitations, upheavals or mutinies

against their perceived selves or fate?

Are they free of strengths and weaknesses peculiar

to horse, deer, bird, goat, snake, lamb or lion?
Are they ever neither animal nor human

but creature and Being?
Do they have holy moments of understanding

deep in the seat of their entity?
Do they experience their existence more fully

relieved of the burden of wakefulness?
Do they suspect, with poets, that all we see or seem

is but a dream within a dream?
Or is it merely a small dying

a little taste of nothingness that gathers in their mouths?

—

Dawning
There are hours when every thing creaks

when chairs stretch their arms, tables their legs

and closets crack their backs, incautiously
Fed up with the polite fantasy

of having to stay in one place

and stick to their stations
Humans too, at work, or in love

know such aches and growing pains

when inner furnishings defiantly shift
As decisively, and imperceptibly, as a continent

some thing will stretch, croak or come undone

so that everything else must be reconsidered
One restless dawn, unable to suppress the itch

of wanderlust, with a heavy door left ajar

semi-deliberately, and a new light teasing in
Some piece of immobility will finally quit

suddenly nimble on wooden limbs

as fast as a horse, fleeing the stable.

—

Words
Words are like days:

coloring books or pickpockets,

signposts or scratching posts,

fakirs over hot coals.
Certain words must be earned

just as emotions are suffered

before they can be uttered

– clean as a kept promise.
Words as witnesses

testifying their truths

squalid or rarefied

inevitable, irrefutable.
But, words must not carry

more than they can

it’s not good for their backs

or their reputations.
For, whether they dance alone

or with an invisible partner,

every word is a cosmos

dissolving the inarticulate
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Yahia Lababidi Biography

Yahia Lababidi, born 1973, is an internationally published writer of Egyptian – Lebanese origin. Lababidi’s first book, Signposts to Elsewhere (2006) received generous reviews from writers in the USA and the Middle East.
Lababidi’s aphorisms are included in an encyclopedia of The World’s Great Aphorists (Bloomsbury) by former Time editor James Geary, out in October 2007.
Otherwise, Lababidi’s poems and essays have appeared, or are forthcoming, in journals world-wide, including: Leviathan: Melville studies (USA), Cimarron Review (USA), Mizna: journal of Arab American literature (USA), Haight Ashbury Literary Journal (USA), Islamica Magazine (USA), Philosophy Now (UK), The Wildean (UK), The Idler (UK), Other Poetry (UK), Dream Catcher (UK), Arena (Australia), Montreal Serai (Canada), Al Ahram Weekly (Egypt), Iranian Times (Iran), Bidoun: Middle East Arts and Culture magazine, as well as online literary communities such as RAWI: Radius of Arab American Writers, Inc. and The Other Voices International Project.

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Solar Fields – Dust

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The days flee so fast in the summertime… We have been working away on various projects, painting, editing, taking care of the grounds, installing this and that. We must catch our breathes, and relax a bit. The summer is our busiest times of the year for us work-wise, all a bit hard to do.
I have been thinking much on Gerrard Winstanley of late, and of William Blake. These ruminations have proved to be the basis of this entry; working it out in process I would venture. Still the themes that are running through my head at this point are just at the juncture of putting something down pen to paper. I feel a welling up of thought and emotions that has me going into another tangent in my life. Stay tuned.
This entry is dedicated to my friend Morgan Miller. He knows the reasons why.
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

The Caer Llwydd Poetry Shrine…

Gerard Winstanley Quotes

The Great Dictator Remix

Geoffrey Oryema – Lapowny

The Case For The Phenomena Of William Blake Experiencing Cosmic Consciousness

William Blake Poetry: A Summer’s Reading…

William Blake Biography

Geoffrey Oryema – Land of Anaka

William Blake – Art

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The Caer Llwydd Poetry Shrine…

The First Entry On Our Poetry Shrine:
The tao that can be told

is not the eternal Tao

The name that can be named

is not the eternal Name.
The unnamable is the eternally real.

Naming is the origin

of all particular things.
Free from desire, you realize the mystery.

Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
Yet mystery and manifestations

arise from the same source.

This source is called darkness.
Darkness within darkness.

The gateway to all understanding.

—

This is of course the first part of the Tao Te Ching… I thought it appropriate for the initiation of the shrine.
I had seen a couple of similar set ups out and about in other parts of Portland. A brilliant idea, and with a little extra flair ours is unique, and hopefully the beginning of more in our neighborhood. Our friend Paul Hoagland put the shrine together on my design ideas, and he provided all of the materials. If you are interested in having one, let me know. I am installing a small altar for incense and flowers as well this week. I will update with photos, and maybe list the poems as we go.

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Gerard Winstanley Quotes:

“All men have stood for freedom… For freedom is the man that will turn the world upside down.”
“Let reason rule the man and he dares not trespass against his fellow creatures, but will do as he would be done unto, For Reason tells him is thy neighbour hungry and naked today, do thou feed and clothe him, it may be thy case tomorrow and then he will be ready to help thee.”
“Everyone that gets an authority into his hands tyrannizes over others; as many husbands, parents, masters, magistrates, that live after the flesh do carry themselves like oppressing lords over such as are under them, not knowing that their wives, children, servants, subjects are their fellow creatures, and hath an equal privilege to share them in the blessing of liberty.”
“For surely this particular property of mine and thine hath brought in all misery upon people. For first, it hath occasioned people to steal one from another. Secondly, it hath made laws to hang those that did steal. It tempts people to do an evil action and then kills them for doing it. Let all judge if this not be a great devil.”
“When this universal law of equity rises up in every man and woman, then none shall lay claim to any creature and say, This is mine, and that is yours. This is my work, that is yours. But everyone shall put their hands to till the earth and bring up cattle, and the blessing of the earth shall be common to all; when a man hath need of any corn or cattle, take from the next store-house he meets with. There shall be no buying and selling, no fairs or markets, but the whole earth shall be the common treasury for every man, for the earth is the Lord’s…

“When a man hath eat, and drink, and clothes, he hath enough. And all shall cheerfully put to their hands to make these things that are needful, one helping another. There shall be none lords over others, but everyone shall be a lord of himself, subject to the law of righteousness, reason and equity, which shall dwell and rule in him, which is the Lord.”
“When the people stare at the sky and dream of blessedness, or when they quiver with fear for hell after death, their eyes get blinded so they can’t see their own right of primogeniture.”

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The Great Dictator Remix:

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an Emperor – that’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible — Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there’s room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful.
But we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
To those who can hear me I say, “Do not despair.” The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictators die; and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
Soldiers: Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel; who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate; only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural.
Soldiers: Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written, “the kingdom of God is within man” — not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men, in you, you the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite!! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfill their promise; they never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people!! Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise!! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.
Soldiers: In the name of democracy, let us all unite!!!

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Geoffrey Oryema – Lapowny

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The Case For The Phenomena Of William Blake Experiencing Cosmic Consciousness

By – Richard Maurice Bucke
If Blake had Cosmic Consciousness the words written above as to the vastly greater scope and variety of this than of self consciousness will receive from his case illustration. The few short extracts from his writings, below quoted, almost prove that he had the Cosmic Sense, which he called “Imaginative Vision” [95: 166], and he must have attained to it within a very few years after reaching the thirtieth of his age. There do not appear to be any details extant of his entrance into it, but his writings may fairly be allowed to prove the fact of possession.
I.
W. M. Rossetti, in the “Prefatory Memoir” to “The Poetical Works of William Blake” [52], gives an admirable sketch of Blake’s actual life and apparently a fair estimate of his abilities and defects. The following extracts therefrom will materially assist us in the inquiry now before us; that is: Had Blake Cosmic Consciousness?
– The difficulty of Blake’s biographers, subsequent to 1863, the date of Mr. Gilchrist’s book, is of a different kind altogether. It is the difficulty of stating sufficiently high the extraordinary claims of Blake to admiration and reverence, without slurring over those other considerations which need to be plainly and fully set forth if we would obtain any real idea of the man as he was—of his total unlikeness to his contemporaries, of his amazing genius and noble performances in two arts, of the height by which he transcended other men, and the incapacity which he always evinced for performing at all what others accomplish easily. He could do vastly more than they, but he could seldom do the like. By some unknown process he had soared to the top of a cloud-capped Alp, while they were crouching in the valley: But to reach a middle station on the mountain was what they could readily manage step by step, while Blake found that ordinary achievement impracticable. He could not and he would not do it; the want of will, or rather the utter alienation of will, the resolve to soar (which was natural to him), and not to walk (which was unnatural and repulsive), constituted or counted instead of an actual want of power [139:9].
Rapt in a passionate yearning, he realized, even on this earth and in his mortal body, a species of Nirvâna: his whole faculty, his whole personality, the very essence of his mind and mould, attained to absorption into his ideal ultimate, into that which Dante’s profound phrase designates “il Ben dell’ intelletto” [139: 11].
– William Blake’s education was of the scantiest, being confined to reading p. 193 and writing; arithmetic may also be guessed at, but is not recorded, and very probably his capacity for acquiring or retaining that item of knowledge was far below the average [139:14].
– In the fact that Blake soared beyond, and far beyond, men of self consciousness merely, but could not see or do many things that these saw clearly and could do easily, we see a relationship between him and the great illuminati. For surely the very same thing could be said of all these. In worldly matters they are all, or nearly all, as little children, while in spiritual things they are as gods. Note Balzac contracting enormous debts for want of ordinary business common sense and laboring vainly for years to pay them while in the full exercise of enough genius to equip a regiment of Rothschilds. Bacon showered upon the human race intellectual and spiritual riches beyond all computation, but with every apparent advantage (position at court, hereditary prestige, influential friends) he labors in vain for years for position in the self conscious sphere, and after getting it cannot hold it. Buddha, Jesus, Paul, Las Casas, Yepes, Behmen and Whitman were wise: They saw that the things of the Cosmic Sense were enough, and they simply put by the things of self consciousness, but had they tried for these the chances are they would have failed to obtain them.
– Blake, too, found the world of the Cosmic Sense enough, and wisely did not waste time and energy seeking for the so-called goods and riches of the self-conscious life.
– These men are independent of education, and most of them—like Blake himself—p. 193 think it useless or worse. Blake says of it: “There is no use in education: I hold it to be wrong. It is the great sin; it is eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This was the fault of Plato. He knew of nothing but the virtues and vices, and good and evil. There is nothing in all that. Everything is good in God’s eyes” [139: 80]. This reminds us of what Hawley said of Bacon: “He had not his knowledge from books, but from some grounds within himself” [141: 47], and of Whitman’s “You shall no longer feed on the spectres in books” [193: 30].
– In the preface to “The Jerusalem” Blake speaks of that composition as paving been “dictated” to him, and other expressions of his prove that he regarded it rather as a revelation of which he was the scribe than as the product of his own inventing and fashioning brain. Blake considered it “the grandest poem that this world contains;” adding, “I may praise it, since I dare not pretend to be any other than the secretary—the authors are in eternity.” In an earlier letter (April 25th, 1803) he had said: “I have written this poem from immediate dictation, twelve or sometimes twenty or thirty lines at a time, without premeditation, and even against my will” [139:41].
– Blake had a mental intuition, inspiration, or revelation—call it what we will; it was as real to his spiritual eye as a material object could be to his bodily eye; and no doubt his bodily eye, the eye of a designer or painter with a great gift of invention and composition, was far more than normally ready at following the dictate of the spiritual eye, and seeing, with an almost instantaneously creative and fashioning act, the visual semblance of a visionary essence [139:62].
– His unworldliness, extreme as it was, did not degenerate into ineptitude. He apprehended the requirements of practical life, was prepared to meet them in a resolute and diligent spirit from day to day, and could on occasions display a full share of sagacity. He was of lofty and independent spirit, not caring to refute any odd stories that were current regarding his conduct or demeanor, neither parading nor concealing his poverty, and seldom accepting any sort of aid for which he could not and did not supply a full equivalent [139:69].
– This is the declaration of each possessor of the Cosmic Sense. It is not I, the visible man who speaks, but (as Jesus says) “As the Father hath said unto me so I speak” [14: 12: 50]; or as Paul writes: “I will not dare to speak of any things save those which Christ wrought through me” [16: 15:18]. “Loose the stop from your throat” [193: 32] says Whitman to the Cosmic Sense. And so universally.
– “O I am sure,” says Whitman, “they really came from Thee—the urge, the ardor, the potent, felt, interior, command, a message from the heavens” [193: 324]. “The noble truths,” Gautama said, ”were not among the doctrines banded down, but there arose within him the eye to perceive them” [159: 150].
– Each word of this passage is strictly true of Whitman, and allowing for difference of manners and customs in other times and countries, the paragraph could be read into the life of any one of the men discussed in this book.
He knows that what he does is not inferior to the gran
dest antiques. Superior it cannot be, for human power cannot go beyond either what he does or what they have done. It is the gift of God, it is inspiration and vision [139:72].
It must be allowed that in many instances Blake spoke of himself with measureless and rather provoking self-applause. This is in truth one conspicuous outcome of that very simplicity of character of which I have just spoken; egotism it is, but not worldly, self-seeking [139: 71].
That he was on the whole and in the best sense happy is, considering all his trials and crosses, one of the very highest evidences in his praise. “If asked,” writes Mr. Palmer, “whether I ever knew among the intellectual a happy man, Blake would be the only one who would immediately occur to me.” Visionary and ideal aspirations of the intensest kind; the imaginative life wholly predominating over the corporeal and mundane life, and almost swallowing it up; and a child-like simplicity of personal character, free from self-interest, and ignorant or careless of any policy of self-control, though habitually guided and regulated by noble emotions and a resolute loyalty to duty—these are the main lines which we trace throughout the entire career of Blake, in his life and death, in his writings and his art. This it is which makes him so peculiarly lovable and admirable as a man, and invests his works, especially his poems, with so delightful a charm. We feel that he is truly “of the kingdom of heaven”: above the firmament, his soul holds converse with archangels; on the earth, he is as the little child whom Jesus “sat in the midst of them” [139:70].
The essence of Blake’s faculty, the power by which he achieved his work, was intuition: this holds good of his artistic productions, and still more so of his poems. Intuition reigns supreme in them; and even the reader has to apprehend them intuitively, or else to leave them aside altogether [139:74].
Ample evidence exists to satisfy us that Blake had real conceptions In the metaphysical or supersensual regions of thought—conceptions which might have been termed speculations in other people, but in him rather intuitions; and that the “Prophetic Books” embody these in some sort of way cannot be disputed [139: 120].
– “Divine am I,” says Whitman, “inside and out” [193: 49].
– “I conned old times,” says Whitman; “I sat studying at the feet of the great masters, now if eligible O that the great masters might return and study me” [193: 20].
– Happiness is one of the marks of the Cosmic Sense.
– It is too bad that these “Prophetic Books” are not published. It seems almost certain that they embody (behind thick veils, doubtless) revelations of extraordinary value—news from “the kingdom of heaven”—from the better world—the world of the Cosmic Sense.
As to his religious belief, it should be understood that Blake was a Christian in a certain way, and a truly fervent Christian; but it was a way of his own, exceedingly different from that of any of the churches. For the last forty years of his life he never entered a place of worship [139:76].
He believed—with a great profundity and ardor of faith—in God; but he believed also that men are gods, or that collective man is God. He believed in Christ; but exactly what he believed him to be is a separate question. “Jesus Christ,” he said, conversing with Mr. Robinson, “is the only God, and so am I, and so are you” [139:77].
In immortality Blake seems to have believed implicitly, and (in some main essentials) without much deviation from other people’s credence. When he heard of Flaxman’s death (December 7th, 1826), he observes, “I cannot think of death as more than the going out of one room into another.” In one of his writings he says: “The world of imagination is the world of eternity. It is the divine bosom into which we shall all go after the death of the vegetated body” [139:79].
Blake had in all probability read in his youth some of the mystical or cabalistic writers —Paracelsus, Jacob Böhme, Cornelius Agrippa; and there is a good deal in his speculations, in substance and tone, and sometimes in detail, which can be traced back to authors of this class [139: 80].
– Blake’s religion—his attitude toward the Church—toward God—toward immortality—is the characteristic attitude of the man who has attained to Cosmic Consciousness—as shown in each life and in all the writings of these men.
-His attitude toward death is that of all the illuminati. He does not believe in “another life.” He does not think he will be immortal. He has eternal life.
-So writes George Frederic Parsons about Balzac [6: 11]. Thoreau makes a similar suggestion as to Whitman [38: 143], and generally it is constantly being hinted or intimated that some of these men have been reading others of them. This may of course sometimes happen, but, speaking generally, it does not, for many of them are quite illiterate, and the studies of others, as, for instance, Bacon, do not lie in that direction. Blake, Balzac, Yepes, Behmen, Whitman, Carpenter and the rest has each seen for himself that other world of which he tells us. No one can tell of it at second hand, for no one who has not seen something of it can conceive it.
Blake’s death was as noble and characteristic as his life. Gilchrist [94: 360–1] gives us the following simple and touching account of it:
“His illness was not violent, but a gradual and gentle failure of physical powers which nowise affected the mind. The speedy end was not foreseen by his friends. It came on a Sunday, August 12, 1827, nearly three months before completion of his seventieth year. ‘On the day of his death,’ writes Smith, who had his account from the widow, ‘he composed and uttered songs to his Maker so sweetly to the ear of his Catharine that when she stood to hear him he, looking upon her most affectionately, said: “My beloved, they are not mine—no, they are not mine!” He told her they would not be parted; he should always be about her to take care of her. To the pious songs followed, about six in the summer evening, a calm and painless withdrawal of breath; the exact moment almost unperceived by his wife, who sat by his side. A humble female neighbor, her only other companion, said afterwards: “I have been at the death, not of a man, but of a blessed angel.”
II.
It remains to quote certain declarations emanating from Blake and which seem to bear upon the point under consideration—viz., upon the question, Was Blake a case of Cosmic Consciousness?
The world of imagination is the world of eternity. It is the divine bosom into which we shall all go after the death of the vegetated body. This world of imagination is infinite and eternal, whereas the world of generation, of vegetation, is finite and temporal. There exist in that eternal world the permanent realities of everything which we see reflected in this vegetable glass of nature [95: 163].
We are in a world of generation and death, and this world we must cast off if we would be artists such as Raphael, Michael Angelo and the ancient sculptors. If we do not cast off this world we shall be only Venetian painters, who will be cast off and lost from art [95:172].
The player is a liar when he says: Angels are happier than men because they are better! Angels are happier than men and devils because they are not always prying after good and evil in one another and eating the tree of knowledge for Satan’s gratification [95:176].
– Blake’s name for Cosmic Consciousness. With this paragraph compare Whitman’s “I swear I think now that everything without exception has an eternal soul! The trees have rooted in the ground! The weeds of the sea have! The animals” [193: 337].
– The world of self consciousness. Balzac says: (Self conscious) “man judge
s all things by his abstractions—good, evil, virtue, crime. His formulas of right are his scales, and his justice is blind; the justice of God [i.e., of the Cosmic Sense] sees—in that is everything” [5: 142].
– “Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age. Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent” [193: 31].
The last judgment is an overwhelming of bad art and science [95: 176].
Some people flatter themselves that there will be no last judgment. . . .- I will not flatter them. Error is created; truth is eternal. Error or creation will be burned up, and then, and not till then, truth or eternity will appear. It [error] is burned up the moment men cease to behold it. I assert for myself that I do not behold outward creation, and that to me it is hindrance and not action. “What!” it will be questioned, “when the sun rises do you not see a round disc of fire somewhat like a guinea?” “Oh, no, no! I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host crying: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!’” I question not my corporeal eye* any more than I would question a window concerning a sight. I look through it and not with it [95: 176].
Beneath the figures of Adam and Eve (descending the generative stream from there) is the seat of the harlot, named mystery [self conscious life], in the Revelations. She (mystery) is seized by two beings (life and death), each with three heads; they represent vegetative existence. As it is written in Revelations, they strip her naked and burn her with fire [i.e., death strips her naked, and the passions of the self conscious life burn it as with fire]. It represents the eternal consumption of vegetable life and death [the life and death of the merely self conscious] with its lusts. The wreathed torches in their hands [in the hands of life and death] represent eternal fire, which is the fire of generation or vegetation; it is an eternal consummation. Those who are blessed with imaginative vision [Cosmic Consciousness]* see this eternal female [mystery—the self conscious life] and tremble at what others fear not; while they despise and laugh at what others fear [95:166].
-I am not ashamed, afraid or averse to tell you what ought to be told—that I am under the direction of messengers from heaven, daily and nightly. But the nature of such things is not, as some suppose, without trouble or care [95: 185].
– I.e., it is the advent of universal Cosmic Consciousness. “Specialism [the Cosmic Sense] opens to man,” says Balzac, “his true career; the infinite dawns upon him” [5: 144]. “The audit of nature, though delayed, must be answered, and her quietus is to render thee” [Cosmic Consciousness] [176: 126].
– Blake says his self conscious faculties are a hindrance to him, not a help. So Balzac: “Baneful, it [self consciousness] exempts man from entering the path of specialism [Cosmic Consciousness], which leads to the infinite” [5: 142]. So the Hindoo experts teach and have always taught, that suppression and effacement of many of the self conscious faculties are necessary conditions to illumination [56: 166 et seq.].
– So Carpenter asks (knowing well the answer): ”Does there not exist in truth . . an inner illumination . . . by which we can ultimately see things as they are, beholding all creation . . . in its true being and order [57:98].
– “Their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched” [12: 9: 48], said by Jesus of the self conscious life, which (also) is the hell of Dante.
– So Whitman: “I laugh at what you call dissolution.”
– “He [my other self], nor that affable, familiar ghost [the Cosmic Sense] which nightly gulls him with intelligence” [176: 86].
“A message from the Heavens whispering to me even in sleep” [193: 324].
III.

SUMMARY.
a. Blake seems to have entered into Cosmic Consciousness when a little more than thirty years of age.
b. The present editor does not know anything of the occurrence of subjective light in his case.
c. The fact of great intellectual illumination seems clear.
d. His moral elevation was very marked.
e. He seems to have had the sense of immortality that belongs to Cosmic Consciousness.
f. Specific details of proof are in this case, as they must inevitably often be, largely wanting, but a study of Blake’s life, writings (he is not in a position nor is he competent to judge Blake from his drawings) and death convinces the writer that he was a genuine and even probably a great case.

____________

William Blake Poetry: A Summer’s Reading…

Love’s Secret

Never seek to tell thy love,

Love that never told can be,

For the gentle wind doth move

Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,

I told her all my heart,

Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.

Ah! she did depart!

Soon after she was gone from me,

A traveller came by,

Silently, invisibly,

He took her with a sigh.

—
To The Evening Star
Thou fair-hair’d angel of the evening,

Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light

Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown

Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!

Smile on our loves, and while thou drawest the

Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew

On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes

In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on

The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,

And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon,

Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,

And then the lion glares through the dun forest:

The fleeces of our flocks are cover’d with

Thy sacred dew: protect them with thine influence!

—
The Garden of Love

I laid me down upon a bank,

Where Love lay sleeping;

I heard among the rushes dank

Weeping, weeping.

Then I went to the heath and the wild,

To the thistles and thorns of the waste;

And they told me how they were beguiled,

Driven out, and compelled to the chaste.

I went to the Garden of Love,

And saw what I never had seen;

A Chapel was built in the midst,

Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut

And “Thou shalt not,” writ over the door;

So I turned to the Garden of Love

That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,

And tombstones where flowers should be;

And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,

And binding with briars my joys and desires.

—
The Voice of the Ancient Bard

Youth of delight! come hither

And see the opening morn,

Image of Truth new-born.

Doubt is fled, and clouds of reason,

Dark disputes and artful teazing.

Folly is an endless maze;

Tangled roots perplex her ways;

How many have fallen there!

They stumble all night over bones of the dead;

And feel — they know not what but care;

And wish to lead others, when they should be led.

—
To Summer
O thou who passest thro’ our valleys in

Thy strength, curb thy fierce steeds, allay the heat

That flames from their large nostrils! thou, O Summer,

Oft pitched’st here thy goldent tent, and oft

Beneath our oaks hast slept, while we beheld

With joy thy ruddy limbs and flourishing hair.

Beneath our thickest shades we oft have heard

Thy voice, when noon upon his fervid car

Rode o’er the deep of heaven; beside our springs

Sit down, and in our mossy valleys, on

Some bank beside a river clear, throw thy

Silk draperies off, and rush into the stream:

Our valleys love the Summer in his pride.

Our bards are fam’d who strike the silver wire:

Our youth are bolder than the southern swains:

Our maidens fairer in the sprightly dance:

We lack not songs, nor instruments of joy,

Nor echoes sweet, nor waters clear as heaven,

Nor laurel wreaths against the sultry heat.

___________

William Blake – Biography

“To see a World in a grain of sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the Palm of your hand

And Eternity in an Hour.”

from Auguries of Innocence
William Blake was born on November 28, 1757 in London, the third of five children. His father James was a hosier, and could only afford to give William enough schooling to learn the basics of reading and writing, though for a short time he was able to attend a drawing school run by Henry Par.
William worked in his father’s shop until his talent for drawing became so obvious that he was apprenticed to engraver James Basire at age 14. He finished his apprenticeship at age 21, and set out to make his living as an engraver.
Blake married Catherine Boucher at age 25, and she worked with him on most of his artistic creations. Together they published a book of Blake’s poems and drawings called Songs of Innocence.
Blake engraved the words and pictures on copper plates (a method he claimed he received in a dream), and Catherine coloured the plates and bound the books. Songs of Innocence sold slowly during Blake’s lifetime, indeed Blake struggled close to poverty for much of his life.
More successful was a series of copperplate engravings Blake did to illustrate the Book of Job for a new edition of the Old Testament.
Blake did not have a head for business, and he turned down publisher’s requests to focus on his own subjects. In his choice of subject Blake was often guided by his gentle, mystical views of Christianity. Songs of Experience (1794) was followed by Milton (1804-1808), and Jerusalem (1804-1820).
In 1800 Blake gained a patron in William Hayley, who commissioned him to illustrate his Life of Cowper, and to create busts of famous poets for his house in Felpham, Suurey.
While at Felpham, Blake was involved in a bizarre episode which could have proven disastrous; he was accused by a drunken soldier of cursing the king, and on this testimony he was brought to trial for treason. The case against Blake proved flimsy, and he was cleared of the charges.
Blake poured his whole being into his work. The lack of public recognition sent him into a severe depression which lasted from 1810-1817, and even his close friends thought him insane.
Unlike painters like Gainsborough, Blake worked on a small scale; most of his engravings are little more than inches in height, yet the detailed rendering is superb and exact. Blake’s work received far more public acclaim after his death, and an excerpt from his poem Milton was set to music, becoming a sort of unofficial Christian anthem of English nationalism in the 20th century.
William Blake died on August 12, 1827, and is buried in an unmarked grave at Bunhill Fields, London.

___________
Geoffrey Oryema – Land of Anaka

___________

It has always seemed strange to me…The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second. – John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

The Master keeps her mind

always at one with the Tao;

that is what gives her her radiance.
The Tao is ungraspable.

How can her mind be at one with it?

Because she doesn’t cling to ideas.
The Tao is dark and unfathomable.

How can it make her radiant?

Because she lets it.
Since before time and space were,

the Tao is.

It is beyond is and is not.

How do I know this is true?

I look inside myself and see.

July, 2009: Small Victories…

So… It is now allowed to paint murals in Portland Oregon, but with a few Caveats: “So, we all should all take pride in working to resolve what was a very difficult and intractable process. And we succeeded to the extent that it was possible at this time. If I had my way we would be free to create murals without restriction but it seems that those days are gone for now. We can however create murals. The application process may be an expensive bureaucratic maze and the restrictions are aggravating but we can now create artwork on the walls of a city where two days ago murals were practically illegal.” – Joe Cotter
Thanks to Joe Cotter, and Joanne Oleksiak who in Joes words: “I want to thank Joanne Oleksiak, who, through Portland Mural Defense, did the bulk of the outreach organizing and spent the last several years facilitating events and bringing in people from around the country and beyond. It was those efforts that led to the widespread support we received in our struggle to free murals from the sign code.”
It is a privilege knowing both Joanne and Joe. They didn’t waver, hesitate or back down. It is a giant step, and one we can savor at this this point. They stuck in there, and my hat is off to the two of them.
The truth of the matter is my mural will be “allowed to be uncovered” after fees, approvals etc. Mirador will not face censure, fines etc., if the niceties are followed. Still, I feel that this whole issue will eventually return to court as a 1st Amendment issue. So much restriction and binding of expression surely cannot be proper. The court case of Clear Channel versus The City of Portland still has not been settled. The Corporate assault on The Commons remains and is a threat to many aspects of life and governance in the US, and indeed across the globe. When art has to go through “approved channels”, read “Censors” I have to throw in a quote that I feel fits at this point (kinda/sorta):
“In a word, we reject all legislation, all authority, and all privileged, licensed, official, and legal influence, even though arising from universal suffrage, convinced that it can turn only to the advantage of a dominant minority of exploiters against the interests of the immense majority in subjection to them.” –Mikhail Bakunin, God and the State
The corporate assault is but part of this: the fact that art is being regulated by bureaucrats, even the best of, and the kindest of, is still regulation in the end. We are on a slippery slope and I think we might agree that this present situation is indeed an improvement on the previous state of no murals allowed, but in the end the current regulations must be subverted and overthrown – removed from the bureaucrats hands. We should not accept limitation/regulation in the expression of the arts just as we should be resisting the current trend to limit free speech. “Free Speech Zones” are as abhorrent as “Approved Murals” in my POV. Enough already. Open up the walls of Portland and every city to freedom of expression and speech.

—

The Great Wheel Turns:
We had a wonderful 4th; with lot of friends up at John Gunn’s. Always a great crowd of people. We were able to touch bases with the Brigg’s who are off to Boise soon. We will miss them very, very much.
Currently we are finishing up an exterior of a house. Struggling a bit with the heat and all, but really we are almost there. Great people to work with. This may be the last of this type of work for us. Some serious re-invention is percolating through our consciousness… 80)
Rowan started working on “The Blue Pill” (as an apprentice/assistant to the director of photography) this past week. The film is now in full production and we shall hardly see him for the next month or so. He is fledgling quickly. He has learned more in the last couple of weeks working with the crew than the last several years as he has said. I am hoping he stays in art school until he gets his degree, but the universe may have other plans.
This entry took a while, and I would like to thank Jessica Deva for reminding me how great Underworld are as a band. This entry has some of my favourite artist and poetry. I hope you will enjoy it.
Praying that all is well with you, and that you are with those you love…
Bright Blessings,
Gwyllm
On The Menu:

Novalis Quotes

The Links

Underworld – dark and long (dark train)

Lives Of The Greek Heroines – Niobe

English Poet: Phillip Larkin

Underworld – Oich Oich

Art:Jens Ferdinand Willumsen

__________

__________
Novalis Quotes:

“Only an artist can interpret the meaning of life.”

“To become properly acquainted with a truth, we must first have disbelieved it, and disputed against it.”

“I often feel, and ever more deeply I realize, that fate and character are the same conception.”

“The artist belongs to his work, not the work to the artist.”

“Learning is pleasurable but doing is the height of enjoyment.”

“To what extent can one have a sense for something if he doesn’t have its embryo inside him? Whatever I come to understand must itself develop organically in myself, and what I seem to learn is only nourishment and cultivation of that inner organism.”

_________
The Links:

Whales Might Be as Much Like People as….

Ruins Of The Second Gilded Age…

British Army Not To Sharp On Seed Identification…

Cockroaches Get Fat On Junk Food…

________
Underworld – dark and long (dark train)

_________

Lives Of The Greek Heroines – Niobe

To the boy Amphion, dwelling among the shepherds with his brother Zethus, through the crafty cruelty of their stepmother Dircé, came the gracious Hermes with a lyre like that which he gave to Phœbus, his brother, to console him when banished from Olympus; and so well did Amphion study the art which the god taught him, that he drew from the lyre sounds so sweet and so stirring that the rugged tempers of the country folk were softened and a longing after a higher life than that they had hitherto known was awakened in them; so that, little by little, he taught them to look to the common good of all as the first object of desire, to work together for mutual help and comfort, instead of seeking each man only his own profit: and because he showed them how to build out of trees and stones, houses, temples and strong defensive walls, men have said that at his singing trees and stones followed him.
And now Thebes, his fair city, had risen, and the thriving industry of his people had made it famous and populous, but there was still something wanting to make the happiness of the minstrel-king complete, Zethus, his brother, cared not for life in a town; the open plains and the rush of the foaming wild boar were more to his taste, with no dome above his head but the vault of heaven, and no walls but the blue hills; and in the spacious, many-chambered palace which rose in the wide market-place, there dwelt indeed the honoured Antiope, restored to her royal palace by the virtue of her sons, but no other lady, only hand maidens and attendants. Where could Amphion seek the queen who should be worthy to dwell with him in his palace, to order all things duly, to direct the labours of the women, and fill the cedar chests with beautiful garments fit for the necks of kings–where could he find a woman whom he would gladly have sitting at his hearth, who would offer sacrifice for him when affairs of state drew him from his home, who would give him children to adorn his manhood and to protect his age–where could he find her who should be worthy of the love of the king and of the poet?
In many princely houses throughout the Achæan land lovely maidens were growing up, but bard and traveller alike joined to praise Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus and of Taÿgete, the Pleiad, the granddaughter of highest Jove: and so often did Amphion hear of her beauty and her endowments that his mind became full of the thought of her; and persuading Zethus, his brother, to forego his country life and dwell within the city while he should be away, he set out with his lyre to pleasant Phrygia, where, by the pebbly Hermus, rose the royal house of Tantalus on its lofty marble pillars. Amphion did not approach the palace in a chariot or with a royal retinue; he preferred to come in the dress of a shepherd, thinking that in this lowly guise he would best learn the nature of the princess he had come to seek. He was too wise to ask her in marriage until his own eyes had justified the report of men. So he hired himself as a helper to the king’s herdsman, and was gladly accepted for the great knowledge that he had of cattle. Thus he dwelt for a time in the pastures at the foot of Mount Sipylus, where the princess often came with her maidens to gather garlands for the temples or to play at ball, and there Amphion saw her, beautiful and strong, with that divine light about her which might be looked for in a maiden in whose veins a strain of ichor, the vital fluid of the Olympians, mingled with royal human blood. He had not seen her many times when his mind was quite made up, and preluding sweetly on his lyre, so sweetly that Niobe and her maidens stopped to listen, he sung
“Daughter of Tantalus,

Over the sea,

Ploughing its wet paths,

Come I to thee,

Fairest of fair maids,

Wisest of wise,

Here on the minstrel

Turn thy sweet eyes!
“I am Amphion,

Jove is my sire;

Hast thou not heard of me–

Heard of my lyre?

How the trees follow’d, each

Bowing his head,

And how the ancient hills

Came where I led,
“Till a fair city

Stood on the plain:

Turret and battlement,

Palace and fane,

Fashion’d by line and rule,

Beams fitting close,

Pillars of marble

In beauty arose!
“Now, alas! Eros,

With bitter sweet shaft

Piercing my liver,

Deadens my craft.

Deeds of the hero

I care not to sing;

Another must look to

The works of the king.
“Come with me, Niobe,

Come in thy truth,

Be to Amphion

The wife of his youth;

“Ruling his household,

Honour’d and wise;

Come with thy beauty

To gladden his eyes!”
Now, when Tantalus, the king, knew that it was Amphion of Thebes, of whom all men talked, that was dwelling in the lowly guise of a shepherd in his pastures, and that it was for love of Niobe that he had left his royal state, he was mightily pleased; and, a hero himself; he delighted to behold the man who, though he could tame the passions of men and lead nature herself at his will, yet had not shrunk from avenging terribly on the treacherous Dircé the wrongs of the unhappy Antiope, his mother, and he gladly welcomed him, and made no secret of his great joy at Ending in him a son-in-law. So Amphion went home again that he might come and fetch his bride in state, which he shortly did, sailing over the blue Ægean in a swift galley with shining sails, Zethus, the strong hunter, his brother, and many gallant kinsmen bearing him company: and never on summer seas sailed a more jocund crew than that which rowed back the swan-like galley to Aulis, when Niobe the queen sat with her women in the stern, while Amphion’s lyre held the Tritons and the sea-nymphs, and the very monsters of the deep, in rapt delight.
Happily sped the years; the fair Boeotian land was like a thriving garden; corn lands and pastures lay in rich beauty about the queenly city, and Amphion and Niobe exulted in their fair domain, in their people, but, above all, in the sons and daughters who were the crowning glory of their lives. So strong and handsome the sons, so fair and skilful the daughters! Who has not heard of them? So many that the mother in her pride boasted that she could count by their names the months of the year. Alas! alas! that some timely sorrow had chastened her pride, and brought to her remembrance in time the vanity of all things human. In vain the wise daughter of Teiresias, Manto the prophetess, uttered her warnings; forebodings of evil darkened her soul with shadows of coming woe. Day by day she urged upon the queen to offer timely sacrifice to Latona, the great Titaness, who, having endured untold woe in her wanderings before the birth of the twin deities Phoebus-Apollo and Artemis, was now with them exalted to the highest place of honour and of glory among the Olympians. Day and night did the streets of the city ring with her warning cry:–
“Daughters of Ismenus, gather

Frequent to Latona’s shrine,

Honour pay her and her children,

Bringing frankincense and wine;

Bind your wavy locks with laurel,

Don your festive garb to-day;

By my mouth the godheads call you,

Hearken to them and obey!
But the queen set her face as flint against the new deity; she would worship none but Hera, the Goddess of Marriage and of Motherhood, and when at length the voice of the prophetess had stirred the women, and high and low gathered with her to the shrine where, by the order of Amphion, the statue of Latona was placed between those of her twin children, unhappy wrath took possession of the soul of Niobe, and gathering her royal robes about her, she swept through the streets, and breaking through the throng of worshippers, exclaimed–
“How is this, ye foolish women? What new divinity have ye set up? Are ye so hard bestead for aught to worship that ye must needs set up the image of an outcast–the offspring of the Titans, the very scourge of heaven and earth? What though she chanced to catch the wandering eye of Jove, think ye he cared much for her when he left her in her trouble to the chance charity of the smallest of the islands? 1 The daughter of Teiresias is in her dotage: the king might have known that no good would come of strange religions. Nay, if ye wanted something to worship, have ye not dwelling among you the offspring of gods and heroes-is not Amphion, your king, the very son of Jove, endowed above the race of men with the divine power of song, which raised for you this fair city, and keeps you in concord, and fear-less of foreign foes within the girth of your mighty seven-gated walls? Was it a man of mortal birth who made such music, think ye? But do ye honour this Latona because of her one son and her one daughter–those same twins of whom we hear so much? A mother of two children! If that be a claim to worship, what say ye to my seven sons and seven daughters, born and bred among yourselves, and in whom the rare blessings wherewith the Moirae 2 have honoured me have reached their crowning point? Behold how lovely and how many they are! Even should one or two fail me, I can scarce be brought down to Latona’s scant two. For very shame, then, leave this miserable shrine to the prophetess and the priests, and lay aside those laurel wreaths!
The women, bewildered and dismayed at the fierce words of the queen, mechanically took the garlands from their hair, and shrunk, cowed and silent, from the shrine, trembling alike at the anger of the queen and at the wrath of Latona. They wist not that the beautiful large stork which sat brooding above the pediment of the shrine was veritably the goddess Latona herself; come thither to do honour to her suppliants; and when she heard the furious speech of the queen, and beheld the worshippers slink away to their homes, lo! the bird rose, and stretching out her long neck to its utmost length, flapped her great wings, and flew with a sharp, whizzing sound away towards the blue Ægean and the shining Cyklades.
The day was waning, and a fresh breeze brought dreamy music from the reedy banks of the Asopus, and sweet refreshment to men and beasts, when the sons of Amphion came forth from the palace, many a noble youth bearing them company, to exercise themselves in the broad plain that lay between the city and the river. Bright and glossy were their curls, bound with a golden circlet or with bright fillets of wool; the light of youth was in their eyes; lips and cheeks glowed with health, and the limbs that the light robes of Tyrian purple left to view were round and supple–right royal youths, from Ismenius, whose brow already bore the stamp of thought, to Ilioneus, who was scarcely yet past childhood.
Ismenius and Sipylus came driving their chariots, and had engaged in a friendly contest of skill and swiftness, when now in mid-career Ismenius smote his hand upon his side and fell lifeless from his chariot; a sound as of a twanging bow-string rang through the air, and Sipylus, his brother, even as he pulled in his horses in dismay, lay stretched beside him on the plain. A cry of horror and dismay, which rose from all who were observing the princes and who saw them fall, startled Phaedimus and Tantalus, the next in age, who were wrestling breast to breast and knee to knee. They looked round in amazement, and even as they looked, before they could unlock their embrace, they fell together on the plain, smitten by one shaft. Alphenor, their brother, beholding this piteous sight, hurried to render them assistance, but even as he stooped to raise the beloved heads the sharp death overtook him, and he lay himself motionless beside those whom he was striving to succour. Of Niobe’s boasted seven sons there now remained but Damasicthon and Ilioneus, the two youngest–the youngest and best-beloved of their mother. Must these also perish to atone for the pride of the unhappy queen? Will the virtue and the piety of Amphion–a minstrel like thyself, O Phoebus!–avail nothing?
The Delian god paused, the arrow still upon the string, and turned the eyes to which all things are visible to the palace where Niobe, surrounded by her daughters, was just hearing the tidings of the death of her elder sons. O! why was not her heart humbled, why did she not cry for mercy to the offended godheads? Two sons are yet unharmed, and the fatal arrow is still in the hand of the Far-darter; with two sons and all her daughters, Niobe might still have cause for thanksgiving, if not for pride. But alas! the queen was wrathful, not humble, and received the tidings with defiant disbelief. The rising pity fled from the heart of Phoebus; wrath and indignation nerved his hand; the fatal arrow whizzed through the air, and the sons of Niobe were no more.
When the terrible tidings of the swift destruction of his sons came to Amphion, his spirit swooned within him.
“Wilt thou not come and behold them?” cried the messenger. “The arrow is invisible, indeed, but the wound can easily be seen in side, or breast, or heart. Wilt thou not look once more upon the faces of thy sons?”
“Do ye what is right,” cried the poet-king, his white head bowed upon his hands. “I also in my youth wrought a stern deed of vengeance for my mother, but not so stern as this–nay, not so stern as this. I cannot look upon the faces of the young men!” Then he arose and went out of the palace to a grove of myrtle and poplar, where he had often gathered his sons about him to hearken to the tales of heroes and kings, and in that deep shade the thought of his sorrow came so darkly over him that he lost all courage, and, opening the fountains of his life, sought again the boys, who had been the crown and joy of his manhood, in the Elysian fields where those whose life on earth has been darkened by undeserved misery spend sunless but happy ages in groves of changeless beauty.
Niobe, meanwhile, her haughty soul wrung by repeated woes, had stripped off her royal robes, and with long hair dishevelled, tearless eyes, and pallid cheeks, stood with her mourning daughters beside the funeral piles of sire and sons. In that evil hour the very greatness of her sorrow seemed to feed her pride. Husband and sons–and such a husband, and such sons!–the cruel Titaness had slain them all. What grief could equal her grief? And as she kissed each cold brow and gazed her last on the beautiful, still faces, the daughter of Tantalus hardened her heart and did not recognize her sin.
Artemis, the daughter of Latona, had stood beside her brother while he drew his deadly shafts; she stood beside him now watching the kindling piles, and, above all, the angry scowl of the bereaved queen.
“Impious daughter of an impious sire,” she exclaimed in wrathful indignation, “hath not thy sin yet come home to thee?” And swift as thought, she drew her silver bow from its case, strung it, and arrow after arrow sped from the string with a sharp twang that rung from heaven to earth, appalling the nations, until of the seven sisters there remained but one, and she the youngest. The queen in terror clasped her to her breast, striving to cover her with garments, arms, and body; and lifting her eyes t
o heaven, she groaned,–”Spare, ye irresistible, spare this the last, the least!”
Not in vain was this late prayer. Artemis heard and spared; and of the fourteen strong and beautiful children in whom their mother had exulted, there remained to her this little one; but the sights and sounds of those cruel days frighted the blood for ever from her cheeks, and she who had been ruddy as the rose and gay as the lark at morning, grew into a sad, wan woman, whom men called Chloris, and whose thoughts were ever with the dead.
Of the crushed and broken-hearted Niobe what tongue can tell? The fountains of her tears once unsealed in the supreme agony in which she wrestled for the life of Chloris refused to be closed again. Speechless and motionless she sat among the dead, weeping endless floods of tears, speaking nothing, hearing nothing.
For three days the people of Thebes were silent and motionless, struck to stone, as it were, by their calamity;but on the fourth day they gathered heart to go to the queen, to bear away the dead from her sight and to hide them in the earth.
But neither the weeping and shouting of the people nor the removal of the dead from about her, nor the clinging caresses of her little daughter, drew word or sign from Niobe. With streaming eyes lifted to heaven she wept night and day, until Hera, in compassion, wrought with Jove so that he snatched her away in a whirlwind, carried her to her own land, to Sipylus, the mountain at whose feet she had played in the happy days of her girlhood, and there turned her into stone. There, even to this day, the traveller can discern in the grey stone on the mountain side the figure of a woman weeping in eternal despair.

_________

English Poet: Phillip Larkin

The Spirit Wooed
Once I believed in you,

And then you came,

Unquestionably new, as fame

Had said you were. But that was long ago.
You launched no argument,

Yet I obeyed,

Straightaway, the instrument you played

Distant Down sidestreets, keeping different time,
And never questioned what

You fascinate

In me; if good or not, the state

You pressed towards. There was no need to know.
Grave pristine absolutes

Walked in my mind:

So that I was not mute, or blind,

As years before or since. My only crime
Was holding you too dear.

Was that the cause

You daily came less near—a pause

Longer than life, if you decide it so?
—

The Little Lives Of Earth And Form
The little lives of earth and form,

Of finding food, and keeping warm,

Are not like ours, and yet

A kinship lingers nonetheless:

We hanker for the homeliness

Of den, and hole, and set.
And this identity we feel

– Perhaps not right, perhaps not real –

Will link us constantly;

I see the rock, the clay, the chalk,

The flattened grass, the swaying stalk,

And it is you I see.

—-
An Arundel Tomb

Side by side, their faces blurred,

The earl and countess lie in stone,

Their proper habits vaguely shown

As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,

And that faint hint of the absurd –

The little dogs under their feet.
Such plainness of the pre-baroque

Hardly involves the eye, until

It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still

Clasped empty in the other; and

One sees, with a sharp tender shock,

His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.
They would not think to lie so long.

Such faithfulness in effigy

Was just a detail friends would see:

A sculptor’s sweet commissioned grace

Thrown off in helping to prolong

The Latin names around the base.
They would not guess how early in

Their supine stationary voyage

The air would change to soundless damage,

Turn the old tenantry away;

How soon succeeding eyes begin

To look, not read. Rigidly, they
Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths

Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light

Each summer thronged the glass. A bright

Litter of birdcalls strewed the same

Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths

The endless altered people came,
Washing at their identity.

Now, helpless in the hollow of

An unarmorial age, a trough

Of smoke in slow suspended skeins

Above their scrap of history,

Only an attitude remains:
Time has transfigured them into

Untruth. The stone fidelity

They hardly meant has come to be

Their final blazon, and to prove

Our almost-instinct almost true:

What will survive of us is love.

—
The Trees
The trees are coming into leaf

Like something almost being said;

The recent buds relax and spread,

Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it they are born again

And we grow old? No, they die too.

Their yearly trick of looking new

Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh

In fullgrown thickness every May.

Last year is dead, they seem to say,

Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

________

Underworld – Oich Oich

________

He who binds to himself a joy

Does the winged life destroy;

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.

~ William Blake

“As I have not worried to be born, I do not worry to die.”

– Federico Garcia Lorca

From The Tao Te Ching:
“Those who know don’t talk.

Those who talk don’t know.
Close your mouth,

block off your senses,

blunt your sharpness,

untie your knots,

soften your glare,

settle your dust.

This is the primal identity.
Be like the Tao.

It can’t be approached or withdrawn from,

benefited or harmed,

honored or brought into disgrace.

It gives itself up continually.

That is why it endures.”

_______
Listening to Rena Jones new album Indra’s Web lately. It is her best, and that is saying alot. Support the artist, and hunt it down. I recommend it, and it will be reviewed in the new edition of The Invisible College soon-ish.

—

Progenitors: Homage To Max Ernst

Collage is the noble conquest of the irrational, the coupling of two realities, irreconcilable in appearance, upon a plane which apparently does not suit them.

-Max Ernst
Artist are often pigeon-holed into one school of expression or another. Some going voluntarily, others kicking and screaming. Some bridge schools, and the ones that steal the most successfully, begin schools. (or so it is said…)
Sometimes, it is just a matter of realizing and saluting who your influences are. I have found that I have several, but one in particular stands out with the recent work that I have been working on: Max Ernst. A giant, and I only discovered him because of my first great art crush: Sätty. Sätty borrowed from Ernst, and I have borrowed inspiration from Sätty. There, I said it. Nothing original except in application of my awareness to the art form. Of course, I no longer use the tried and true methods that both Sätty & Ernst used. The computer is my medium, and one that I love. A blessing on Photoshop!
In a conversation I had with the friend of Sätty and the conservator of Satty’s estate Walter Medeiros, Walter said that he could not see a direct connection between my work and Sätty’s. I guess that I have been moving the collage formula into another direction, but my inspiration still lies with the classic works. Other artist have mentioned that they can see the connection. Funnily enough, they mention Ernst more often than not. I take that as a compliment btw.
You can readily see the influence that Ernst had on Sätty. One of the great criticisms of Satty was that his work appeared to be derivative of Ernst, which may or may not be true, but as time went along, you could see a divergence in application with Sätty’s collages. His last works were breath-taking.
Ernst was an original. His illustrated novels, paintings and other works stand out in the Surrealist Pantheon. His works with collage may indeed have been the biggest contribution to modern art through the Surrealist stream. Through Sätty, Max Ernst stepped forward and whispered into my ear. We all have influences, and we should recognize them, and celebrate them.

—-
I started this entry around the Mimi & Richard Farina clips from Pete Seegers’ show in the mid-60′s. I admit, as a young man Mimi was better than sliced bread with jam on it. The fact that she could sing and play guitar well just added spice to it all. The reality of that I never had met her, and she was older, as well married to a brilliant partner didn’t complicate matters so much in my young mind. (There is a brilliant antiwar poster of her and her lovely sister as well as a friend from 67′: “Girls Say Yes To boys who say no”.)
Her husband Richard Farina was quite the Bohemian package. It has been said that between him, Bob Dylan, and the Baez sisters Mimi and Joan, they redefined beat into its 60′s manifestation. I can’t disagree with that, and I understand there is a book on it: “Positively 4th Street”. I am looking for a copy out of curiosity. I suggest Richard Farina’s book as well: “Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me”… this is a brilliant novelization of his early days.
I think you will find the music that Richard & Mimi made very interesting. It illuminated my days and nights when I was in my first youth, and I still find it beautiful today. Mimi died a few years back in her mid 50′s. After Richards death she still performed for awhile, but her crowning success is “Bread & Roses”… I find her work with prisoners to be a great inspiration. She lived a full life, and touched many including a young kid years ago.
This Entries Literary Theme: Turkish… through a folktale, and revisiting with Nazim Hikmet, we re-enter the stream of Turkish art. More to come, I keep discovering greater, and greater depths. This is such a great delight! If I could only devote more time to it!
Well, I have been working on this entry long enough, work is calling and the day is beautiful.
Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm
_________________
On The Menu:

The Links

Mimi & Richard Farina performing “Dopico” and “Celebration For A Grey Day”

Max Ernst Quotes

Turkish Fairy Tales: Sister and Brother

Richard & Mimi Farina – “Bold Marauder”

The Poetry of Nazim Hikmet

Mimi & Richard Farina performing “Pack Up Your Sorrows” and a small chat with Mimi

Art: Max Ernst

Bio: Max Ernst

______________________

The Links:

The Mayor of 7th Avenue…..

Glass Frog?

The Plant That Pretends To Be Ill

Solstice At Stonehenge…

Talking To The Plants..

_________________________
Mimi & Richard Farina performing “Dopico” and “Celebration For A Grey Day”

_____________________
Max Ernst Quotes:

“Painting is not for me either decorative amusement, or the plastic invention of felt reality; it must be every time: invention, discovery, revelation.”

“You can drink the images with your eyes.”

“When the artist finds himself he is lost. The fact that he has succeeded in never finding himself is regarded by Max Ernst as his only lasting achievement. “

“All good ideas arrive by chance.”

“Woman’s nudity is wiser than the philosopher’s teachings.”

_____________________

_____________________

Turkish Fairy Tales: Sister and Brother
There once lived a man named Ahmed Aga. He was very rich, and beside his wife had no one belonging to him. The only thing that disturbed his happiness was the fact that he had no child. “Allah,” said he, “has endowed me with much property and wealth; I have also an honourable name; would that He might vouchsafe me a child! Then were my happiness complete. After my death he would inherit my whole fortune, and my fame would be enhanced.”
One night he was brooding as usual over this matter and said to his wife: “Would it not have been better if Allah had given us poverty with a child?” These words pained his wife very deeply, and before she went to bed she prayed to Allah for consolation, In the night she dreamt that she was sitting by the sea-shore. A mermaid came to the surface of the water with a pot in her hand and said to the woman “Tell your husband Allah has given him this kismet; let him come and fetch it.” She hastened home to tell her husband and in her excitement woke Ahmed Aga as well as herself. “What is the matter?” asked the man. “Nothing,” answered the woman; “but you have waked me.”
“No,” returned the man, “it was you who roused me.” Then his wife recounted what she had seen and heard in her dream. “Then that was why you woke me,” muttered her husband, and turning over went to sleep again. To his wife, however, the dream was a thing of good omen.
Rising next morning, the woman advised her husband to go down to the seashore. “It might be no vain dream after all,” she mused. “Do not be foolish,” retorted her husband, “our kismet is not in dreams; if Allah has any gift to bestow on us He will do it by other means.” His wife, how. ever, gave him no peace. “Nevertheless go,” she insisted; “the sea will not engulf you, and maybe Allah will bless us in this wise.” The man could not further withstand his wife, so when he went out for a stroll, he took the direction of the seashore.
While pacing up and down he noticed that some dark object was being washed ashore on the crest of the billows. As it came nearer he could see that it was a pot, the mouth of which was securely bound. Alternating betwixt hope and fear, he seized the pot and with a bismillah opened it. Imagine his joy to find therein two newborn babes. When Ahmed Aga saw them he was like a child himself; in his delight he knew not what to do first. Taking off his cloak, he wrapped the babes carefully in it and ran all the way home. He arrived out of breath, and dropped the bundle in his wife’s lap. When she opened it and saw what it contained she too was frantic with joy, kissing the children and pressing them to her heart. The babes being hungry soon began to cry lustily. This brought the worthy couple to their senses, and soon Ahmed was on the road in search of a nurse for their unexpected family. Before long he found a suitable woman, and engaged her at a very generous wage. As soon as she arrived the cries of the infants were stilled immediately. On the following day two more nurses were engaged, and thus cared for the children, a boy and a girl, grew fat and strong.
In another town there was likewise a man who had no children, although, like Ahmed Aga, he greatly desired a son. So he and his wife prayed earnestly to Allah that he would give them a child, and when they learned that their prayers were to be answered, their rejoicing was unbounded. The good news came to the ears of a servant who at one time had been in that household, but having been dismissed by the wife for neglecting her duties, she was desperately jealous at the happiness which was coming to her former mistress. Determined to take her revenge, she presented herself as a nurse, and was engaged. In due time twin babies, a boy and a girl, were born; but while their mother was sleeping, and before ever their father had seen them, the false nurse put the children into a pot, and having sealed it carefully, cast it into the sea. While the husband was sleeping, the false woman sat by him and whispered in his ear so that he thought it was a dream sent by Allah. She told him that he had been deceived and had, after all, no child. As the mother had been asleep, she could not tell what had become of her children, and certainly they were nowhere to be found. So the husband, believing his dream, was very angry at what he thought was his wife’s attempt to deceive him, and he drove her out of his house. The poor creature had not a friend in the world, and went forth weeping bitterly.
She wandered on from one hill to another, until one day, although it was dark, it seemed as though each hill was a different colour from the others. Fear seized upon her heart and tears started from her eyes. Hunger and fatigue overcame her, and she knew not what to do. Seeing a tree, she climbed up to spend the night in it and await Allah’s pleasure toward her. Having settled herself among the leafy branches, she wept herself to sleep. When morning dawned she descended in the hope of meeting with a passer by or coming to a village where she might obtain a little bread.
But, alas! no aid was nigh, and after wandering for many hours she sank down from sheer exhaustion. Presently, however, she saw in the distance a shepherd, and, summoning the remainder of her little strength, she accosted him. Offering her bread, the shepherd asked her trouble. When he had heard it he took pity upon her and led her home to his wife, his son, and his daughter.
As time went on the poor woman had almost forgotten her sorrow, excepting her grief for the loss of her children, over whom she often sighed and wept. How fared they in the meantime?
With the good Ahmed Aga and his wife they grew up to their fourteenth year and went together to school. One day the boy was playing with a companion, who, jealous of his superiority over him, said: “Be off, you fatherless and motherless brat, found by Ahmed Aga on the seashore.” At these words the boy’s brow became clouded, and he ran away angrily to his foster-mother, telling her what had been said to him. She endeavoured to calm him, but that same night the boy dreamt of the shepherd’s hut and of his mother, who in the dream related all her sufferings. When he repeated the dream to his sister, lo! she also had had a similar dream. Then the boy knew that what his playfellows had taunted him with was no untruth, but the fact. They went together to their kind foster-father and told him what they had both dreamt. The good man was troubled, but confessed that he had indeed found them in a pot washed up by the waves; of their mother he knew nothing. The brother and sister were in despair at the thought of their poor mother living in a shepherd’s cottage. It was impossible to comfort them, and finally the boy declared his intention of setting out to find his mother. His sister was left behind in the kind hands of her foster-parents.
Spurred on by his heroic courage and anxiety for his mother, the boy made all haste, and as he lay down to rest under the stars one night the place of his mother’s sojourn was revealed to him in a dream. To cut our story shorter, we will only say that in one day he covered a five-days, journey without experiencing either hunger or fear. As he followed the course indicated in his dream he found his further progress barred by a hideous dragon. The boy had no weapon, but picking up a large stone he flung it at the ugly beast with such tremendous force that the creature reeled backward and fell to the earth. “If you are a man throw another stone at me,” shouted the dragon; but the youth went his way, leaving the dragon to perish.
Indefatigably the boy travelled, and in due time reached the valley where his mother had once spent the night in a tree. Here he stopped, and at the foot of the tree sought the rest that had long been denied him. W
hile he slept, the brother of the dead dragon, having heard what had happened, came in search of the boy. The monster’s heavy strides caused the earth to tremble and awoke the youth. “I am certain you are the youth who has killed my brother,” began the dragon. “Now it is my turn.” Saying this, with jaws foaming and fire issuing from his nostrils, he sprang upon the lad. In self-defence the youth grasped the dragon’s foreleg, using such strength that he tore it from the body and flung it away. Then the dragon sank down weakening from loss of blood, saying: “To him who has taken my life belongs my treasure.” The unwieldy beast rolled over and over and finally disappeared into a cavern at the foot of a mountain.
Prompted by curiosity, the youth glanced into the mouth of the cavern and saw a staircase leading downward. Descending, he found a palace,
which he entered and explored in all directions. In one apartment was a maiden sitting on a throne–a maiden so lovely that his heart was a thou sand times filled with love of her. On her part the maiden was enraptured with the youth’s comeliness; but, not knowing of the dragon’s destruction, she cried: “Woe unto us! If the dragon sees this youth he will kill us both.” Then addressing the youth she asked: “How came you into this palace of the Breathless Dragon? Whomsoever he looks upon is slain by his mere glance.”
Now the youth related to the maiden how he had slain both dragons, and he besought her to come away with him. As she appeared not to comprehend, he repeated his words and urged her to hasten, as he had other business to fulfil. “That being so,” said the maiden at last, “there is much here that we might take away with us.” The maiden leading the way and the youth following, they entered the forty rooms of the palace, each of which was filled with gold, diamonds, and precious stones. However, the youth said: “My dear, I have first an important duty to perform; when that is done, we will return and take away as much of this treasure as we please.”
Thus they departed, and at some distance saw the shepherd’s hut which sheltered the youth’s mother. At once he recognised it as the building seen in his dream. Hurrying up, he knocked at the door, and it was opened by his mother herself. Each recognised the other from their dreams, and they fell into each other’s arms.
Next morning they all set off together for the dragon’s palace. On the backs of the horse and donkey they brought with them, they packed as many sacks of gold and diamonds as the animals could possibly carry. Then they hastened, with brief pauses for rest, to the home of Ahmed Aga, where the youth rejoined his sister and the mother saw her daughter. Now the joyful woman was repaid for all her past sufferings, and they all lived happily together for many years.
The worthy shepherd’s son was betrothed to the youth’s sister, while the youth himself was betrothed to the maiden of the dragon’s palace. A suitable husband was found for the shepherd’s daughter, and they were all married on the same day, the festivities lasting forty days and forty nights, and their happiness for ever.

___________

___________

Richard & Mimi Farina – “Bold Marauder”

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The Poetry of Nazim Hikmet

Hymn To Life

The hair falling on your forehead

suddenly lifted.

Suddenly something stirred on the ground.

The trees are whispering

in the dark.

Your bare arms will be cold.
Far off

where we can’t see,

the moon must be rising.

It hasn’t reached us yet,

slipping through the leaves

to light up your shoulder.

But I know

a wind comes up with the moon.

The trees are whispering.

Your bare arms will be cold.
From above,

from the branches lost in the dark,

something dropped at your feet.

You moved closer to me.

Under my hand your bare flesh is like the fuzzy skin of a fruit.

Neither a song of the heart nor “common sense”–

before the trees, birds, and insects,

my hand on my wife’s flesh

is thinking.

Tonight my hand

can’t read or write.

Neither loving nor unloving…

It’s the tongue of a leopard at a spring,

a grape leaf,

a wolf’s paw.

To move, breathe, eat, drink.

My hand is like a seed

splitting open underground.

Neither a song of the heart nor “common sense,”

neither loving nor unloving.

My hand thinking on my wife’s flesh

is the hand of the first man.

Like a root that finds water underground,

it says to me:

“To eat, drink, cold, hot, struggle, smell, color–

not to live in order to die

but to die to live…”
And now

as red female hair blows across my face,

as something stirs on the ground,

as the trees whisper in the dark,

and as the moon rises far off

where we can’t see,

my hand on my wife’s flesh

before the trees, birds, and insects,

I want the right of life,

of the leopard at the spring, of the seed splitting open–

I want the right of the first man.

—

On Living

I

Living is no laughing matter:

you must live with great seriousness

like a squirrel, for example–

I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,

I mean living must be your whole occupation.

Living is no laughing matter:

you must take it seriously,

so much so and to such a degree

that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,

your back to the wall,

or else in a laboratory

in your white coat and safety glasses,

you can die for people–

even for people whose faces you’ve never seen,

even though you know living

is the most real, the most beautiful thing.

I mean, you must take living so seriously

that even at seventy, for example, you’ll plant

olive trees–

and not for your children, either,

but because although you fear death you don’t believe it,

because living, I mean, weighs heavier.
II

Let’s say you’re seriously ill, need surgery–

which is to say we might not get

from the white table.

Even though it’s impossible not to feel sad

about going a little too soon,

we’ll still laugh at the jokes being told,

we’ll look out the window to see it’s raining,

or still wait anxiously

for the latest newscast …

Let’s say we’re at the front–

for something worth fighting for, say.

There, in the first offensive, on that very day,

we might fall on our face, dead.

We’ll know this with a curious anger,

but we’ll still worry ourselves to death

about the outcome of the war, which could last years.

Let’s say we’re in prison

and close to fifty,

and we have eighteen more years, say,

before the iron doors will open.

We’ll still live with the outside,

with its people and animals, struggle and wind–

I mean with the outside beyond the walls.

I mean, however and wherever we are,

we must live as if we will never die.
III

This earth will grow cold,

a star among stars

and one of the smallest,

a gilded mote on blue velvet–

I mean this, our great earth.

This earth will grow cold one day,

not like a block of ice

or a dead cloud even

but like an empty walnut it will roll along

in pitch-black space …

You must grieve for this right now

–you have to feel this sorrow now–

for the world must be loved this much

if you’re going to say “I lived” …

—

Things I Didn’t Know I Loved
it’s 1962 March 28th

I’m sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train

night is falling

I never knew I liked

night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain

I don’t like

comparing nightfall to a tired bird
I didn’t know I loved the earth

can someone who hasn’t worked the earth love it

I’ve never worked the earth

it must be my only Platonic love
and here I’ve loved rivers all this time

whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills

European hills crowned with chateaus

or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye can see

I know you can’t wash in the same river even once

I know the river will bring new lights you’ll never see

I know we live slightly longer than a horse but not nearly as long as a crow

I know this has troubled people before

and will trouble those after me

I know all this has been said a thousand times before

and will be said after me
I didn’t know I loved the sky

cloudy or clear

the blue vault Andrei studied on his back at Borodino

in prison I translated both volumes of War and Peace into Turkish

I hear voices

not from the blue vault but from the yard

the guards are beating someone again

I didn’t know I loved trees

bare beeches near Moscow in Peredelkino

they come upon me in winter noble and modest

beeches are Russian the way poplars are Turkish

“the poplars of Izmir

losing their leaves. . .

they call me The Knife. . .

lover like a young tree. . .

I blow stately mansions sky-high”

in the Ilgaz woods in 1920 I tied an embroidered linen handkerchief

to a pine bough for luck
I never knew I loved roads

even the asphalt kind

Vera’s behind the wheel we’re driving from Moscow to the Crimea

Koktebele

formerly “Goktepé ili” in Turkish

the two of us inside a closed box

the world flows past on both sides distant and mute

I was never so close to anyone in my life

bandits stopped me on the red road between Bolu and Geredé

when I was eighteen

apart from my life I didn’t have anything in the wagon they could take

and at eighteen our lives are what we value least

I’ve written this somewhere before

wading through a dark muddy street I’m going to the shadow play

Ramazan night

a paper lantern leading the way

maybe nothing like this ever happened

maybe I read it somewhere an eight-year-old boy

going to the shadow play

Ramazan night in Istanbul holding his grandfather’s hand

his grandfather has on a fez and is wearing the fur coat

with a sable collar over his robe

and there’s a lantern in the servant’s hand

and I can’t contain myself for joy

flowers come to mind for some reason

poppies cactuses jonquils

in the jonquil garden in Kadikoy Istanbul I kissed Marika

fresh almonds on her breath

I was seventeen

my heart on a swing touched the sky

I didn’t know I loved flowers

friends sent me three red carnations in prison
I just remembered the stars

I love them too

whether I’m floored watching them from below

or whether I’m flying at their side
I have some questions for the cosmonauts

were the stars much bigger

did they look like huge jewels on black velvet

or apricots on orange

did you feel proud to get closer to the stars

I saw color photos of the cosmos in Ogonek magazine now don’t

be upset comrades but nonfigurative shall we say or abstract

well some of them looked just like such paintings which is to

say they were terribly figurative and concrete

my heart was in my mouth looking at them

they are our endless desire to grasp things

seeing them I could even think of death and not feel at all sad

I never knew I loved the cosmos
snow flashes in front of my eyes

both heavy wet steady snow and the dry whirling kind

I didn’t know I liked snow
I never knew I loved the sun

even when setting cherry-red as now

in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors

but you aren’t about to paint it that way

I didn’t know I loved the sea

except the Sea of Azov

or how much
I didn’t know I loved clouds

whether I’m under or up above them

whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts
moonlight the falsest the most languid the most petit-bourgeois

strikes me

I like it
I didn’t know I liked rain

whether it falls like a fine net or splatters against the glass my

heart leaves me tangled up in a net or trapped inside a drop

and takes off for uncharted countries I didn’t know I loved

rain but why did I suddenly discover all these passions sitting

by the window on the Prague-Berlin train

is it because I lit my sixth cigarette

one alone could kill me

is it because I’m half dead from thinking about someone back in Moscow

her hair straw-blond eyelashes blue
the train plunges on through the pitch-black night

I never knew I liked the night pitch-black

sparks fly from the engine

I didn’t know I loved sparks

I didn’t know I loved so many things and I had to wait until sixty

to find it out sitting by the window on the Prague-Berlin train

watching the world disappear as if on a journey of no return
19 April 1962

Moscow

—-

Last Will And Testament

Comrades, if I don’t live to see the day

– I mean,if I die before freedom comes –

take me away

and bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia.
The worker Osman whom Hassan Bey ordered shot

can lie on one side of me, and on the other side

the martyr Aysha, who gave birth in the rye

and died inside of forty days.
Tractors and songs can pass below the cemetery –

in the dawn light, new people, the smell of burnt gasoline,

fields held in common, water in canals,

no drought or fear of the police.
Of course, we won’t hear those songs:

the dead lie stretched out underground

and rot like black branches,

deaf, dumb, and blind under the earth.
But, I sang those songs

before they were written,

I smelled the burnt gasoline

before the blueprints for the tractors were drawn.
As for my neighbors,

the worker Osman and the martyr Aysha,

they felt the great longing while alive,

maybe without even knowing it.
Comrades, if I die before that day, I mean

– and it’s looking more and more likely –

bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia,

and if there’s one handy,

a plane tree could stand at my head,

I wouldn’t need a stone or anything.
Moscow, Barviha Hospital

_______________

Max Ernst Bio:

Max Ernst was born on April 2, 1891 in Brühl, near Cologne. Ernst began studying classical philology but then became interested in art and literature through the 1912 Cologne Sonderbund Exhibit and his friendship with August Macke, whom he met in 1910-11. He became acquainted with the ‘Blaue Reiter’, Apollinaire, Delaunay, Georges Grosz and Wieland Herzfelde as well as Hans Arp.
He fought in World War I in France and Poland, and recovered from clinical death, an experience which was to deepen his decision to take up art. Married the art historian Luise Straus (1918) and the next year, visited Paul Klee and created his first paintings, block prints and collages, and experimented with mixed media. Along with J. T. Baargeld and Hans Arp, he founded the Cologne Dada group, and in 1921 was invited by André Breton to Paris, where he befriended Tristan Tzara and Sophie Taeuber.
A year later, he moved there and illustrated the collage-novel Les Malheurs des immortels, to which Paul Éluard provided the texts. Illustrated further books of poetry by Eluard (1923) and created 17 wall murals for Eluard’s house in Eaubonne (rediscovered in the 60′s and exhibited).
In 1925 Ernst developed the frottage technique as it would be employed in his entire work process thereafter until his later graphic works. It was during this period that he created his series Histoire Naturelle, Bird Paintings, and Forests, and in 1926, the sets for Sergei Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet. He collaborated with Joan Miró, and then with Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí on the film l’Age d’Or.
In 1927 he married Marie-Berthe Aurenche. Two years later, he created another collage-novel La Femme à 100 Têtes. His first exhibit in New York took place in 1931. Spent time in Maloja with Alberto Giacometti (1934) and created the collage-novel Une Semaine de Bonté. Began using the décalcomanie technique – a sort of decal painting (1936) and did the set decoration for Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Enchaîné (1937). In the mean time, his work was being confiscated in Germany.
Ernst joined Leonora Carrington, and moved to southern France, Saint-Martin d’Ardèche in 1938. In 1939, he was sent to a concentration camp but set free again by Eluard’s appeal. The very next year he was again sent to a concentration camp, this one in Aix-en-Provence, from which he attempted to escape twice.
Emigrated to the USA (1941), settled in New York and married the art collector Peggy Guggenheim. He began exhibiting in 1942 and met with other émigrés such as David Hare, André Breton and Marcel Duchamp. Began working on new plastic art (1944). Met the artist Dorothea Tanning (1942), they took life-time vows to each other in 1946 and moved to Sedona, Arizona. He wrote the treatise Beyond Painting (1948) and only returned to Europe on a visit in 1949-50.
A retrospective of his works was held on his 60th birthday in Brühl (though he rejected the honorary citizenship later offered to him). Guest lecturer in Hawaii. In 1953 he returned to Paris but was excluded from the Surrealist circle. At the 27th Biennial in Venice (1954), received the first prize, which helped him to get financially back on his feet. Settled in Touraine in 1955 and became a French citizen in 1958.
On his 70th birthday, his work was shown in various exhibitions, among others at the Tate Gallery in London and the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne. In 1963 he and his wife Dorothea Tanning moved to the southern French town of Seilans. A retrospective was held at the Kunsthaus in Zurich. In 1964, his graphic series ‘Maximiliana’ printed, an important work. He designed stage sets and a fountain for the city of Ambois (1968). In 1975, retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the Galeries Nationales du Grand-Palais in Paris published a complete catalogue of his works, the Spies / Leppien Catalogue. A book in two volumes on his graphic work from 1906-1925 published.
Max Ernst died on April 1, 1976 in Paris

_______________
Mimi & Richard Farina performing “Pack Up Your Sorrows” and a small chat with Mimi

________________

Anarchists are opposed to violence; everyone knows that. The main plank of anarchism is the removal of violence from human relations. It is life based on freedom of the individual, without the intervention of the gendarme. For this reason we are the enemies of capitalism which depends on the protection of the gendarme to oblige workers to allow themselves to be exploited–or even to remain idle and go hungry when it is not in the interest of the bosses to exploit them. We are therefore enemies of the State which is the coercive violent organization of society.

–Errico Malatesta

Started writing this entry back on the 5th of June… It has built up a bit of steam since then. I have gotten side tracked on various issues; doing layout for a poetry book, painting on a house of incredible scary heights, watching the weather go from screwy to worse, and realizing you can’t always do it all. (though I try… and try)
Saturday: A Contemplation On Iran & The Shift:

Watching Twitter today, and the various media outlets, I have come to the conclusion that what we are seeing is the tip of the iceberg; the world may indeed be moving into the phase it was 41 years ago with the Paris Uprising, Chicago, the Martin Luther King Riots… Mexico City etc… I saw it pointed out that there is conflict right across from the Indus/Himalaya complex to the Mediterranean… and if that wasn’t enough North Korea and parts of Central & South America (and of course Africa) are blowing as well at this point. I am talking about the possibility of World Revolution at this point; for our children this may be the summer that they will remember and point to as “Everything Changed That Summer”… I am not wishing violence, indeed the counter to that, but so many factors are coming into play at this point. The economic shifts, the glaring in-equalities and the abandonment of any semblance of egalitarian balance amongst various populations, the sheer desperation of the greater number of the oppressed everywhere. There must be balance; and there will be in the end, unfortunately we may be moving into a very uncomfortable time of change and all the attending mayhem of the patterns of redress and sorting out.
It is amazing watching the news via Youtube and services (we don’t have a TV as much as a video monitor) and seeing the sheer bravery of the young of Tehran.
Sunday: The Neighborhood Tribes – Avian

I have been out walking most mornings from around 6:00 – 8:00am… the earlier the better for checking out the various creatures about their business and play. The Crows have been busy teaching their young ones how to fly. It is a flock event; everyone gets into the act, calling out encouragement, guarding the perimeter (I was roundly told off a couple of times walking under the trees they were all in…) I noticed a territorial element I hadn’t noticed before: The Crows occupy certain neighborhoods, the Jays others, though they will raid each others holdings on occasion. The Starlings raid everywhere, and without regard. The Robins are in familial groups, and tend not to flock during mid-summer, but in spring and fall.
We are working quite a bit in the yard, and setting up for the heat of late summer. This includes setting up for chickens & a barbecue area so we can cook outside in the worse of the heat. It has been raining and cool most days of late, but the summer does hit strongly in July and into early fall with August.
We bid farewell to Marley, Austyn’s family pup. He developed lymphoma, and the vet came by from what I understood today to ease his exit from this life. He was a very, very sweet dog.
One of the world’s greatest musicians past this week: Ali Akbar Khan. I first heard his music some 44 years ago. I never lost my appreciation of his great art. We will feature some of it hopefully this week on Turfing.
We are featuring the music of Karen Dalton, perhaps the best folk singer you have never heard of, although she was very influential on the works of Robert Dylan and others… We also are featuring the tales of The Selkie, heading up to the shores of Scotland, Ireland, the Hebrides and further to Iceland. We have some Anarchy quotes, and the brilliant poetry of Kalidasa, Indian Poet and Playwright…
Have a Happy Solstice! Remember the dance of life and how it flows through us all!
Bright Blessings,

Gwyllm

_________________
On The Menu:

The Links

The Anarchy Quotes

Karen Dalton – It Hurts Me Too

The Seal’s Skin – Icelandic Folktale

The Great Selkie of Sule Skerrie

Sean & The Selkie

The Poetry of Kalidasa

Kalidasa Bio

Karen Dalton “Blues Jumped The Rabbit”

_______________

The Links:

Karen Dalton… the best singer you have never heard of….

Thanks to Mr. Webster… Serpents A Short Meditation on Ophidian Botany

Fighting For Their And Our Lives…

The Military Looks To The Book…

Once The Seat Of Kings…

Thanks To Tom In Tacoma: “The Sacred Plants Of The Maya”

_______________

The Anarchy Quotes:

You can’t mine coal without machine guns. –Richard B. Mellon, Congressional testimony quoted in Time, June 14, 1937
A democracy cannot be both ignorant and free. –Thomas Jefferson
The great are great only because we are on our knees. Let us rise! –Max Stirner, The Ego and His Own
The liberty of man consists solely in this: that he obeys natural laws because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been externally imposed upon him by any extrinsic will whatever, divine or human, collective or individual. –Mikhail Bakunin, God and the State
In a word, we reject all legislation, all authority, and all privileged, licensed, official, and legal influence, even though arising from universal suffrage, convinced that it can turn only to the advantage of a dominant minority of exploiters against the interests of the immense majority in subjection to them. –Mikhail Bakunin, God and the State

_______________
Karen Dalton – It Hurts Me Too

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The Seal’s Skin – Icelandic Folktale

Once in the east of Mýrdalur a man went along the cliffs on the seashore early in the morning. He came to a mouth of a cave and heard the sound of merrymaking and dancing inside. Nearby he saw many seals’ skins. He took one of the skins, brought it home and locked it in a chest.
In the daytime he came again to the cave. There sat a young and pretty woman who was naked and cried desperately. She was the seal whose skin the man had taken. He let her dress herself, comforted her and brought her home with him. She has become attached to him, but did not get on with others. She often sat and looked at the sea.
Some time later the man married her. They lived in harmony and had children. The farmer kept the seal’s skin locked up in the chest and had the key with him wherever he went. Many years later he once went outdoors and left the key at home, under his pillow. Others say that the farmer went to celebrate Christmas with his men, but his wife was ill and could not go with them. While he changed his clothes, he left the key in a pocket of his everyday wear. When he came back home, the chest was open, and both the woman and the skin disappeared.
She had taken the key, looked into the chest out of curiosity and found the skin there. She could not resist the temptation, bade farewell to her children, put on the skin and plunged into the sea. And before she plunged into the sea, they say, she whispered:
Where have I to flee?

I’ve seven kids in the sea

And seven kids on dry land.
They say the man grieved much for that. Afterwards, when he went fishing, a seal often swam round his boat, and it seemed that tears ran from her eyes. Ever since that man always had good catch and was lucky.
When their children went to the shore for a walk, people often saw a seal that swam in the sea not far from them, both when they were on land and near water, and threw motley fish and nice sea shells to them. But their mother never came back.

____________________
The Great Selkie of Sule Skerrie
1.An earthly nourris sits and sings,

And aye, she sings, by lily wean!

Little ken I my bairn’s father,

Far less the land where he dwells in.
2.Then he arose at her bed-feet,

And a grumbly guest, I’m sure was he:

“Here am I, thy bairns father,

Although I be not comelie.”

3.”I am a man upon the land,

I am a Selkie in the sea;

And when I’m far and far frae land,

My dwelling is in Sule Skerrie.”
4.”It was na weel,” quo the maiden fair.

“It was na weel, indeed,” quo she,

“That the Great Selkie of Sule Skerrie

Suld hae come and aught a bairn to me.”
5.Now he has taen a purse of gold,

And he has pat it upon her knee,

Sayin, “Gie to me my little young son,

And tak thee up thy nourris-fee.”
6.Ane it shall come to pass on a simmer’s day,

When the sin shines het on evera stane,

That I will tak my wee young son,

And teach him for to swim the faem.
7.And thou shall marry a proud gunner,

And a proud gunner I’m sure he’ll be,

And the very first shot that ere he shoots,

He’ll shoot baith my young son and me.

___________________
Sean & The Selkie

by Grainne Rowland
The sun was just about to set. Three tired fishermen plodded along the narrow coast road to their homes. They were famished for their evening meals and looking forward to a bit of a rest.
Sean was the first around a bend in the road. He stopped so suddenly that the others bumped into him.
“Shhh!” Sean whispered. “Look!”
The three stared at the most beautiful woman they had ever seen. She sat on the rocks combing her long red hair.
“Who is she?” asked one. “I’ve never seen her before.”
Sean answered, “She’s got to be a selkie. Look, there’s her skin lying on the rock beside her.”
Patrick whispered, “You’re right. Since I was a young lad, people have told stories of the selkies, the seal people. But this is the first time I’ve ever seen one.”
Sean crept forward and made a quick grab; he stood up with what looked like a seal’s skin. He held it tightly with both hands.
The woman looked up with a sad expression on her face.
“Will you not give back my skin?” she asked sadly.
“No,” said Sean. “I am the only man in the village without a wife. I know selkies make the best wives. You will be my wife.”
“I will miss the sea if I come with you,” she said. “But as long as you keep my skin, I must stay with you.”
“You may come to the sea whenever you wish,” said Sean. “But I will keep your skin.”
Sean was married three days later, and his two friends were at the wedding. No one but the three knew that Sean’s wife was a selkie. As for Sean, he locked the selkie’s skin in a strong chest and kept the key on a chain around his neck.
Sean’s marriage was a good one. His fortunes improved as soon as he was married. He soon owned his own fishing fleet, and his two old fishing friends worked for him. His wife gave him three strong sons and two beautiful daughters. Sean was very happy.
Sean’s wife spent as much time as she could by the sea. She loved especially to sit by the sea on a night with a full moon. It was then she met her own people, the seal people, who came to console her on her fate among humans. Often, after they left, she would weep. How she missed her own people!
After many, many years, Sean decided that he was so rich that his family must move to a bigger, grander house. As they were all stepping into an elegant carriage to go to the new mansion, Sean’s wife went once more into the house to take a last look around. In one corner, she noticed something that looked like a small pile of rubbish.
Curious, she knelt down to see what it was; her heart began to beat faster. It was an old chest, rotting with age! Could it be? She quickly searched through it. There it was! Her skin! Her heart singing, she took it, ran out the door and raced down to the sea. As she reached the sea, she heard Sean chasing after her and shouting his love. But, before he could catch up, she threw on her skin. In front of his eyes, she changed back into her seal form and then swam far out to sea. She was never seen again.

____________________
The Poetry of Kalidasa:

Seasonal Cycle – Summer

“Oh, dear, this utterly sweltering season of the highly rampant sun is drawing nigh, and it will always be good enough to go on taking daytime baths, as the lakes and rivers will still be with plenteous waters, and at the end of the day, nightfall will be pleasant with fascinating moon, and in such nights Love-god can somehow be almost mollified…[who tortured us in the previous vernal season… but now without His sweltering us, we can happily enjoy the nights devouring cool soft drinks and dancing and merrymaking in outfields…]
“Oh, beloved one, somewhere the moon shoved the blackish columns of night aside, somewhere else the palace-chambers with water [showering, sprinkling and splashing] machines are highly exciting, and else where the matrices of gems, [like coolant pearls and moon-stone, etc.,] are there, and even the pure sandalwood is liquefied [besides other coolant scents,] thus this season gets an adoration from all the people…
“The beloved ones will enjoy the summer’s clear late nights while they are atop the rooftops of buildings that are delightful and fragranced well, while they savour the passion intensifiers like strong drinks and while the ladylove’s face suspires the bouquets of those drinks together with melodious instrumental and vocal music…
“The women are ameliorating the heat of their lovers with their chicly silken coolant fineries gliding onto their rotund fundaments, for they are knotted loosely, and on those silks glissading are their golden cinctures with their dangling tassels that are unfastened on and off, and with their buxom bosoms that are bedaubed with sandal-paste and semi-covered with pearly strings and golden lavalieres, and with their locks of hair that are sliding onto their faces, which locks are fragrant with bath-time emulsions, which are just applied before their oil bath…
“Brightly coloured with the reddish foot-paint that is akin to the colour of lac’s reddish resin, adorned with anklets that are festooned with jingling bells, whose tintinnabulations on their stepping after stepping mimic the clucks of swans, with such feet those women with bumpy behinds are rendering the hearts of people impassioned, in these days of pre-summer…
“These days the bosoms of womenfolk are bedaubed with scents and sandal-paste, and they are given out to snowily and whitely pearly pendants that are sported on those bosoms, and even their hiplines are with the dangling golden griddle-strings, with such a lovely ostentation whose heart is it, that does not fill with raptures…
“The seams of limbs of ladies of age are conquered by the often emerging sweat, thus those peaky bosomed lustful ladies are presently banding their bosoms with softish fineries, casting aside their roughish apparels …
“The rustles of air comprising the aroma of watered sandal-paste, blown off by the fans with peacocks’ plumage, and the rustle of strings of pearls when the roundish bosoms of loves are hugged, together with the subtle melody of string instruments, and subtly sung intonations of singers, now appear to awaken Love-god, Manmatha, who is as though asleep after his manoeuvres in the last spring season…
“On leisurely seeing the faces of the maids that are comfortably sleeping well on the tops of whitish edifices, the moon of these nights is highly ecstasized, for he is unpossessed with any such flawless face, as his own face is flawed with rabbit-like, deer-like foibles, and when the night dwindles, he doubtlessly goes into state of pallidity, as though ashamed to show his face to the flawless sun…
“The intolerable westerly wind of the summer is up-heaving the clouds of dust, even the earth is ablaze, set by the blazing sun, and the itinerants whose hearts are already put to blaze by the blazing called the detachment from their ladyloves, and now it has become impossible for them even to look at the blazing earth, to tread further…
“The reigning sun’s torridity rendered the animals parched, and with unquenchable thirst highly shrivelled are their tongues, throats and lips, and on seeing kneaded blackish mascara like mirages on the sky in another forest, that are cloudlike in their shine, those animals are rushing there, presuming them to be water…
“The women of charm are with smiles and slanted looks, and now they are on par with the twilights that are ornamented with a beautiful ornament called moon, and they are now decorating themselves confusedly and they are inciting the incorporeal Love-god in the hearts of itinerants…
“Extremely seared by the rays of sun, and even by the already seared dust on the pathway, with its slithery motion and downcast hood, repeatedly suspiring when being scalded thus awfully, that serpent is sinking down under the pave of peacock’s plumage, distrait of the fact that a peacock is an enemy of serpents, thus distrait is the relative danger from a born enemy or from the searing summer…
“Thwarted are the valorousness and venturesomeness of that king of animals, the lion, for the thirst is abnormal, thereby gaping his mouth much lengthily, and suspiring repeatedly with a lengthened and dangling tongue, and repeatedly whisking his frontal hair of the mane, that lion is not pawing the elephants, though they are at his nearby, and though they both of them are born rivals, thus the scalding summer cooled off their mutual contempt…
“Verily dried up are their throats, but somehow some cool water remaining in their trunks is brought to those dry throats with the prehensility of their trunks, but too scanty is that water for those mega-vores, further muchly scorched by sun’s scorching rays and overpowered by heightened thirst, even those water-seeking tuskers are unafraid of those nearby lions, as negligible is the physical danger than the natural danger…
“The scorching sunrays that are akin to the tongues of blazed up Ritual-fire, by them the bodies as well as the souls of peacocks are wilted, thus they wedge their faces in the pack of their plumage for certain coolness, and though they mark the serpents that are milling about under the very same plumage through the plumes and feathers, they peck not those serpents to death, as their priority is to cool off their faces and heads…
“The slime in the ponds is dried up but in some areas Bhadramusta grass is available, and while the herd of wild boars is digging up that grass with their long and broad snouts for a piggish slumber, the sunrays have highly sweltered their backs, but that herd dug the dry swamp more and more, as though to enter the interior of earth, to get a mucky, miry, muddy slumber…
“With the unbearable prickly heat of sunrays highly seared is a frog, and jumping up from a pond with mud and muddy water, it jumped to sit under the shade of a parasol, called the hood of a snake… neither thirstier frog is aware that it is the shade of a snake’s hood, nor the thirstiest snake is aware that it is shading a thirsty frog…
“When each other elephant is highly huddling, belaboured is that lake by their elephantine limbs, and completely uprooted are the tall slender stems of lilies and lotuses of that lake, without any remnants of standing lotuses or lilies, thus trampled and agglutinated with mud, they are heaped up under the feet of elephants, and ill-fated are the fishes when trodden by elephants underfoot, and the Saarasa waterfowls are fleeing with fear of this rumpus…
“Akin to sunshine upcast is irradiance of the jewel on its hood, and wigwagging is its twinned tongue licking the air, and it is seared by its own venom, by fiery soil, and by the searing sun as well, and thus tottering thirstily, that hooded serpent is not draining the dregs of frogs, to the dregs…
“Frothily gaping and reeling are the two-pieced snouts, and jerkily extruding are the lightly re
ddened tongues, and staggering thirstily looking for water with upraised snouts, those herds of she-buffalos are extruding from the caves of mountain with such snouts and gaits, wherein they took shade from the scorching sun so far, but thirst drove them out of those cool caves…
“Extremely withered as though by wildfire and utterly shrivelled are the tender stalks of crops, and windswept by harsh winds they are uprooted and completely wilted and reduced to straw, and all over scorched are they in an overall manner as the water is evaporated, and if seen from highlands till the end of forest, this summer is foisting upon the onlookers a kind of disconcert, as the straw in the wind about the monsoon is unnoticeable…
“Perching on the trees with wilted leaves, flocks of birds are hyperventilating, the overtired troops of monkeys are going nigh of viny caves on the mountain, the water-craving herds of buffalos are rambling hither and thither, the straight flying Sharabha birds are nose-diving into wells and easily lifting up the water…
“The wildfire, that is simulative of a just blossomed bright and fierily ochreish safflower, is exceedingly speedy and further whipped up by the speed of the wind it is eagerly embracing the treetops, that are on the banks of lakes and rivers, with tongues of fire, onto which trees the apices of climber plants are eager to embrace, thus that wildfire has burnt down every quarter of land, in a trice…
“That wildfire, now intensified by the gusts, is blazing the valleys of mountains, and thus skittering across it entered the stands of bamboos, only to shatter them in a second with clattering rattles, then escalated by gusts it is overspreading the straw fields, then from their within, on smacking the perimeter of straw-field, it is broiling the herds of deer, tumultuously …
“That wildfire taking a rebirth in the copses of silk-cotton trees is extremely blazing, and from within the cavities of the trees it is erupting with the glint of golden yellow, and thus uprooting the wizened leaves on wizened branches along with their trees, and then hurled by gusts it is whirling everywhere in that woodland unto its edging…
“When fire scorched their bodies, their dichotomic thinking of mutual hostilities had to be discarded, and those elephants, buffalos and lions come together as friends, and when blighted by the fire, they are quickly exiting their habitual confines to enter the areas of rivers that have broad sandbanks…
“Oh, dear melodious singer, what if the summer is scorching… fragrant lotuses are overlaid on coolant waters, agreeably refreshing is the fragrance of Trumpet flowers, comfortable is the fresh water in bathing pools, pleasurable are those moonbeams, and with these pearly pendants and these jasmine garlands, let our simmering summer nights enjoyably slip by, while we abide on the tops of buildings right under the moonscape, savouring potations and amidst music and song…

Kalidasa

Indian poet and dramatist, Kalidasa lived sometime between the reign of Agnimitra, the second Shunga king (c. 170 BC) who was the hero of one of his dramas, and the Aihole inscription of AD 634 which praises Kalidasa’s poetic skills. Most scholars now associate him with the reign of Candra Gupta II (reigned c. 380-c. 415).
Little is known about Kalidasa’s life. According to legend, the poet was known for his beauty which brought him to the attention of a princess who married him. However, as legend has it, Kalidasa had grown up without much education, and the princess was ashamed of his ignorance and coarseness. A devoted worshipper of the goddess Kali (his name means literally Kali’s slave), Kalidasa is said to have called upon his goddess for help and was rewarded with a sudden and extraordinary gift of wit. He is then said to have become the most brilliant of the “nine gems” at the court of the fabulous king Vikramaditya of Ujjain. Legend also has it that he was murdered by a courtesan in Sri Lanka during the reign of Kumaradasa.
Kalidasa’s first surviving play, Malavikagnimitra or Malavika and Agnimitra tells the story of King Agnimitra, a ruler who falls in love with the picture of an exiled servant girl named Malavika. When the queen discovers her husbands passion for this girl, she becomes infuriated and has Malavika imprisoned, but as fate would have it, Malavika is in fact a true-born princess, thus legitimizing the affair.
Kalidasa’s second play, generally considered his masterpiece, is the Shakuntala which tells the story of another king, Dushyanta, who falls in love with another girl of lowly birth, the lovely Shakuntala. This time, the couple is happily married and things seem to be going smoothly until Fate intervenes. When the king is called back to court by some pressing business, his new bride unintentionally offends a saint who puts a curse on her, erasing the young girl entirely from the king’s memory. Softening, however, the saint concedes that the king’s memory will return when Shakuntala returns to him the ring he gave her. This seems easy enough–that is, until the girl loses the ring while bathing. And to make matters worse, she soon discovers that she is pregnant with the king’s child. But true love is destined to win the day, and when a fisherman finds the ring, the king’s memory returns and all is well. Shakuntala is remarkable not only for it’s beautiful love poetry, but also for its abundant humor which marks the play from beginning to end.
The last of Kalidasa’s surviving plays, Vikramorvashe or Urvashi Conquered by Valor, is more mystical than the earlier plays. This time, the king (Pururavas) falls in love with a celestial nymph named Urvashi. After writing her mortal suitor a love letter on a birch leaf, Urvashi returns to the heavens to perform in a celestial play. However, she is so smitten that she misses her cue and pronounces her lover’s name during the performance. As a punishment for ruining the play, Urvashi is banished from heaven, but cursed to return the moment her human lover lays eyes on the child that she will bear him. After a series of mishaps, including Urvashi’s temporary transformation into a vine, the curse is eventually lifted, and the lovers are allowed to remain together on Earth. Vikramorvashe is filled poetic beauty and a fanciful humor that is reminiscent of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
In addition to his plays, Kalidasa wrote two surviving epic poems Raghuvamsha (“Dynasty of Raghu”) and Kumarasambhava (“Birth of the War God”), as well as the lyric “Meghaduta” (“Cloud Messenger”). He is generally considered to be the greatest Indian writer of any epoch.
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Karen Dalton “Blues Jumped The Rabbit”

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Infinity is that.

Infinity is this.

From Infinity, Infinity has come into existence.

From Infinity, when Infinity is taken away, Infinity remains. -Sri Chimoy…

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I have been working on working, so to speak. More soon, I promise.
Gwyllm

“Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn’t anyone who doesn’t appreciate kindness and compassion.”

-Dalai Lama

Welcome to the new Earthrites.org Turfing Blog!
A big thanks to our friend Doug Fraser for helping me with the transition from our old server to our new server. I am very, very excited! This is allowing me to change a good many things on Earthrites.org, and to head towards our new direction! Earthrites.org and Gwyllm-Arts.com have started transitioning to a new set up as well. First is on the design level and contents on Earthrites.org is starting to transition over the weekend and next next.
Stay tuned for some pleasant surprises!

Bright Blessings!

Gwyllm

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On The Menu:

On Rebirth – The Quotes

Art Set To Music: Gil Bruvel

Fatimah, Mary and the Divine Feminine in Islam

The Poetry Of Hafiz

Art Set To Music:Mark Kostabi

Art: Gwyllm

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On Rebirth – The Quotes:

“Life, death and rebirth are inevitable. ”

– Rig Veda

“After attaining Me the great souls do not incur rebirth, the impermanent home of misery, because they have attained the highest perfection.”

– Bhagavad Gita

“It quite often happens that the old man is subject to the delusion of a great moral renewal and rebirth, and from this experience he passes judgments on the work and course of his life, as if he had only now become clear-sighted; and yet the inspiration behind this feeling of well-being and these confident judgements is not wisdom, but weariness .”

– Friedrich Nietzsche

“Their comings and goings in reincarnation do not end; through death and rebirth, they are wasting away.”

– Sri Guru Granth Sahib

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Art Set To Music: Gil Bruvel

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Fatimah, Mary and the Divine Feminine in Islam
At the very core of Islamic philosophy there is evidence of what can be called a vision of the Motherhood of God.
In the first Sura of the Koran, the Fatiha that is recited by millions of Muslims in their daily devotions, God is called Al Rahmin, the merciful and compassionate one. “Ramin” is derived from the Arabic for “womb” or “matrix”, mercy is also a feminine attribute, and so Muslims are reminded that God can be either woman or man. Every day God is compared to a mother and woman.
While the Muslim vision is often perceived to be authoritarian and punitive the Koran, on close inspection, is filled with descriptions and vision of God’s more feminine attributes such as gentleness, providence, love, universal compassion and tender-heartedness.
Muhammad was himself a living example of the Divine’s infinite capacity for forgiveness: many times he forgave enemies who had committed unspeakable atrocities against him and his brethren.
The religious intolerance that characterises the behaviour of many Muslim communities today is inconsistent with the heritage of tolerance that is professed by the Islamic tradition. For example, the Koran clearly states in several passages that any person who lives a life of holy reverence is welcomed into paradise regardless of their religion. Muhammad openly praises both Judaism (Abraham is deeply respected within the Koran) and Christianity (Muhammad frequently praises Jesus and Mary in the Koran).
Even more surprising is the Koran’s reverence for Mary, mother of Christ. Muhammad (and also in later Islamic theological scriptures) regarded Mary as the most marvellous of all women, a high adept and living example of the pure and holy life. Later Koranic commentaries describe Mary as an intervening force between God (Allah) and humanity. This intervening force is characterised by Allah’s mercy, forgiveness, sweetness and humility- the embodiment of Allah’s love for creation.
When Muhammad retook Mecca he began a programme of removing the pagan influences from the Kaaba, the most holy of Muslim sites. He removed many frescoes and images that he considered inauspicious but he specifically left on the walls a fresco of the Virgin Mary and her child.
In one of the most powerful Hadiths ( prophetic sayings of Muhammad) it is reported that Muhammad said, “Paradise is at the feet of the Mother”. Does this suggest that the feminine aspect of God is an important and essential pathway to the attainment of supreme consciousness?
Muhammad’s peak defining experience, called the Meraj, saw him elevated through the seven heavens to the realm of God Almighty at the resplendant Sidrath where he communed with God, received his divine visions and instructions and was placed on the inexorable course of his life-mission to establish Islam. Muhammad was escorted by the archangel Gabriel (a masculine force) but the vehicle upon which Muhammad rode was the beautiful “Buraq”. The Buraq was a white horse with wings and the face of a woman! Clearly suggesting that the great power by which Muhammad was elevated to the level of supreme consciousness was ultimately feminine in nature! Some scholars say that the Buraq is an Islamic symbol of the Kundalini, a force that Eastern Yogis describe as the Goddess or Divine Mother.
Fatimah is another prominent female in the Islamic tradition. Muhammad revered Fatimah as if she were a divine being, saying “Allah, The Most High; is pleased when Fatimah is pleased. He is angered; whenever Fatimah is angered!”
Whenever Fatimah would go to the house of Muhammad, he would stand up out of respect for her and honour her by giving her a special place to seat herself in his house. He regarded her as a sort of primordial woman, a symbol of divine womanhood giving her many holy names, such as: Siddiqah; The Honest, The Righteous; Al-Batool, Pure Virgin; Al-Mubarakah, The Blessed One; .Al-Tahirah, The Virtuous, The Pure, Al-Zakiyah ;The Chaste, The Unblemished ;Al-Radhiatul Mardhiah, She who is gratified and who shall be satisfied; Al-Muhaddathah, A person other than a Prophet, that the angels speak to; Al-Zahra, The Splendid; Al-Zahirah, The Luminous.
Shias revere the person of Fatimah, Muhammad’s daughter and mother of the line of inspired imams who embodied the divine truth for their generation. As such, Fatimah is associated with Sophia, the divine wisdom, which gives birth to all knowledge of God. She has thus become another symbolic equivalent of the Great Mother.
Sunni Islam has also drawn inspiration from the female. The philosopher Muid ad-Din ibn al-Arabi (1165-1240) saw a young girl in Mecca surrounded by light and realised that, for him, she was an incarnation of the divine Sophia. He believed that women were the most potent icons of the sacred, because they inspired a love in men which must ultimately be directed to God, the only true object of love.
More generally speaking Muslims are reminded in the Koran that humans can experience and speak about God only in symbols. Everything in the world is a sign (aya) of God; so women can also be a revelation of the divine. Ibn al-Arabi argued that humans have a duty to create theophanies for themselves, by means of the creative imagination that pierces the imperfect exterior of mundane reality and glimpses the divine within. The faculty of imagination is commonly associated with the Divine Feminine.
While official Islam may not consistently describe the role of the Divine Feminine, this principle has been described and explored at length in the more esoteric Islamic tradition of Sufism. Sufism emphasises passionate, mystical adoration of God. Many Sufis (and other mystics in other religions) seek a spiritual union between themselves and the divine principle not unlike that between a child (the Sufi) and his mother (God) or a bride (Sufi) and the husband (God).
The Sufi poetry teaches the feminine qualities of joy, love, tenderness and self sacrifice on a path of true knowledge derived from the spiritual heart. The spiritual rebirth of the individual is not unlike the trial and tribulation of physical childbirth, according to the Sufis. They take the principle of divine love and use it to facilitate the process of alchemical transformation from mundane human to spiritual being.
The fanaticism that we see in modern Islam is a new development in a religion that, in its early history, was famous for its tolerance and respect for other religions. In Islam’s classical period in medieval Spain and Egypt perhaps only Buddhism rivalled Islam’s tolerance. The fundamentalism that characterises the behaviour of many of today’s Muslims is in fact anti-Koranic.
A Sufi Ode to the Divine Mother

On the face of the earth there is no one more beautiful than You

Wherever I go I wear your image in my heart

Whenever I fall in a despondent mood I remember your image

And my spirit rises a thousand fold

Your advent is the blossom time of the Universe

O Mother you have showered your choicest blessings upon me

Also remember me on the Day of Judgement

I don’t know if I will go to heaven or hell

But wherever I go, please always abide in me.

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The Poetry Of Hafiz

(older translations…!)
I Cease Not From Desire

I cease not from desire till my desire

Is satisfied; or let my mouth attain

My love’s red mouth, or let my soul expire,

Sighed from those lips that sought her lips in vain.

Others may find another love as fair;

Upon her threshold I have laid my head,

The dust shall cover me, still lying there,

When from my body life and love have fled.
My soul is on my lips ready to fly,

But grief beats in my heart and will not cease,

Because not once, not once before I die,

Will her sweet lips give all my longing peace.

My breath is narrowed down to one long sigh

For a red mouth that burns my thoughts like fire;

When will that mouth draw near and make reply

To one whose life is straitened with desire?
When I am dead, open my grave and see

The cloud of smoke that rises round thy feet:

In my dead heart the fire still burns for thee;

Yea, the smoke rises from my winding-sheet!

Ah, come, Beloved! for the meadows wait

Thy coming, and the thorn bears flowers instead

Of thorns, the cypress fruit, and desolate

Bare winter from before thy steps has fled.
Hoping within some garden ground to find

A red rose soft and sweet as thy soft cheek,

Through every meadow blows the western wind,

Through every garden he is fain to seek.

Reveal thy face! that the whole world may be

Bewildered by thy radiant loveliness;

The cry of man and woman comes to thee,

Open thy lips and comfort their distress!
Each curling lock of thy luxuriant hair

Breaks into barbèd hooks to catch my heart,

My broken heart is wounded everywhere

With countless wounds from which the red drops start.

Yet when sad lovers meet and tell their sighs,

Not without praise shall Hafiz’ name be said,

Not without tears, in those pale companies

Where joy has been forgot and hope has fled.

—-

The Bird of Gardens
The bird of gardens sang unto the rose,

New blown in the clear dawn: “Bow down thy head!

As fair as thou within this garden close,

Many have bloomed and died.” She laughed and said

“That I am born to fade grieves not my heart

But never was it a true lover’s part

To vex with bitter words his love’s repose.”
The tavern step shall be thy hostelry,

For Love’s diviner breath comes but to those

That suppliant on the dusty threshold lie.

And thou, if thou would’st drink the wine that flows

From Life’s bejewelled goblet, ruby red,

Upon thine eyelashes thine eyes shall thread

A thousand tears for this temerity.
Last night when Irem’s magic garden slept,

Stirring the hyacinth’s purple tresses curled,

The wind of morning through the alleys stept.

“Where is thy cup, the mirror of the world?

Ah, where is Love, thou Throne of Djem?” I cried.

The breezes knew not; but “Alas,” they sighed,

“That happiness should sleep so long!” and wept.
Not on the lips of men Love’s secret lies,

Remote and unrevealed his dwelling-place.

Oh Saki, come! the idle laughter dies

When thou the feast with heavenly wine dost grace.

Patience and wisdom, Hafiz, in a sea

Of thine own tears are drowned; thy misery

They could not still nor hide from curious eyes.

—
The Days Of Spring
The days of Spring are here! the eglantine,

The rose, the tulip from the dust have risen–

And thou, why liest thou beneath the dust?

Like the full clouds of Spring, these eyes of mine

Shall scatter tears upon the grave thy prison,

Till thou too from the earth thine head shalt thrust.

—
True Love

True love has vanished from every heart;

What has befallen all lovers fair?

When did the bonds of friendship part?–

What has befallen the friends that were?

Ah, why are the feet of Khizr lingering?–

The waters of life are no longer clear,

The purple rose has turned pale with fear,

And what has befallen the wind of Spring?
None now sayeth: “A love was mine,

Loyal and wise, to dispel my care.”

None remembers love’s right divine;

What has befallen all lovers fair?

In the midst of the field, to the players’ feet,

The ball of God’s favour and mercy came,

But none has leapt forth to renew the game–

What has befallen the horsemen fleet?
Roses have bloomed, yet no bird rejoiced,

No vibrating throat has rung with the tale;

What can have silenced the hundred-voiced?

What has befallen the nightingale?

Heaven’s music is hushed, and the planets roll

In silence; has Zohra broken her lute?

There is none to press out the vine’s ripe fruit,

And what has befallen the foaming bowl?
A city where kings are but lovers crowned,

A land from the dust of which friendship springs–

Who has laid waste that enchanted ground?

What has befallen the city of kings?

Years have passed since a ruby was won

From the mine of manhood; they labour in vain,

The fleet-footed wind and the quickening rain,

And what has befallen the light of the sun?
Hafiz, the secret of God’s dread task

No man knoweth, in youth or prime

Or in wisest age; of whom would’st thou ask:

What has befallen the wheels of Time?

– Trans G. Bell (1897)

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Art Set To Music: Mark Kostabi

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Thanks For Visiting!