A Moment of introspection and Veterans Day

This image (by the brillant illustrator Tomer Hanuka)  was created for a newspaper in Israel. The article talks about the sad reality of parents preparing themselves mentally for the possibility they will loose their child in the ongoing conflict in the middle east. The grieving starts at the moment the doctor announces they have a boy during the ultrasound scan, and continues until the child finally leaves for his mandatory 3 years army service at 18.

Today, Veteran’s Day… is a reminder and tribute to those who fought for our freedom but it should also be a moment of reflection for those who still long to some day be free from war, death and the tragic human loss in the valiant fight for one’s personal and country’s freedom 

Tearing open, empty cups and Rumi

Like the shadow of a cypress tree in the meadow,
like the shadow of a rose, I live
close to the rose.

 

If I separated myself from you,
I would turn entirely thorn.

 

Every second, I drink another cup of my own blood-wine.
Every instant, I break an empty cup against your door.

 I reach out, wanting you to tear me open.
–Rumi, “Saladin’s Begging Bowl”

They told us

They told us you’ll conquer when you submit.
We’ve submitted and found ashes.
They told us you’ll conquer when you love.
We loved and found ashes.
They told us you’ll conquer when you abandon your life.
We abandoned our life and found ashes.
      We found ashes. It remains to rediscover our life, now that we’ve nothing left. I imagine that he who’ll rediscover life, in spite of so much paper, so many emotions, so many debates, and so much teaching, will be someone like us, only with a slightly tougher memory. We ourselves can’t help still remembering what we’ve given. He’ll remember only what he’s gained from each of his offerings. What can a flame remember? If it remembers a little less than is necessary, it goes out; if it remembers a little more than is necessary, it goes out. If only it could teach us, while it burns, to remember correctly. I’ve come to an end: if only someone else could begin at the point where I’ve ended. There are times when I have the impression that I’ve reached the limit, that everything’s in its place, ready to sing together in harmony. The machine on the point of starting. I can even imagine it in motion, alive, like something unexpectedly new. But there’s still something: an infinitesimal obstacle, a grain of sand, shrinking and shrinking yet unable to disappear completely. I don’t know what I ought to say or what I ought to do. Sometimes that obstacle seems to me like a teardrop wedged into some articulation of the orchestra, keeping it silent until it’s been dissolved. And I have an unbearable feeling that all the rest of my life won’t be sufficient to dissolve this drop within my soul. And I’m haunted by the thought that, if they were to burn me alive, this obstinate moment would be the last to surrender.

–George Seferis, an untitled piece in Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard’s George Seferis: Collected Poems, dated June 5, 1932

 

Your people are hard to find

 

There are people you are born with and then there are the people you find … I have found my people in the cubicle next to me, in the apartment upstairs from me, and in my book club. One morning one friend brings another friend running, and it sticks forever. Other times the funny stranger across the table at an industry lunch is just who you need in your life. Don’t get me wrong. There aren’t loads of Your People out there. That is why it is important to be on the lookout. Your People are hard to find.

–Satellite Sisters, Uncommon Senses

Miranda Lee Richards – Life Boat

Miranda Lee Richards – Life Boat

Oh, my love 
Woncha’ stop your cryin’ 
The sunlight’s bringin’ rainbows to your tears 
Cotton swayin’ fields are the pillars of your sadness 
The daylight dries the rusted leaves 
You wake up it’s a dream…

And it’s a bright, sunny morning 
Each day a new beginning 
Well, it’s all comin’ back now

Sail across the ocean, the ocean deep and wide 
The storm will bring you to the other side 
Freedom, my love, is a double-sided coin 
What have you done to earn your keep
It’s no longer a dream…

Well, it’s a bright, sunny morning 
Each day a new beginning 
Well, it’s all comin’ back now 
Well, it’s all comin’

So walk these broken roads 
What’s pretending might as well be lost 
And raise the wall, my only sons 
You know I will follow, you know I might follow

You wake up it’s a dream 
It’s a bright, sunny morning 
Each day a new beginning 
Well it’s all comin’ ‘round… 
…Ooh

Serabee – Driving Me Stupid

Serabee is a singer and songwriter with Southern roots, who is making her way to the top and has already enjoyed a piece of success. If you’ve ever heard Charlotte Church’s platinum hit, “Crazy Chick”, then you should know that Serabee actually wrote that song.

She’s originally from Mississippi and has become a pretty hot on the music scene in New Orleans. Her debut single is called “Driving Me Stupid” and is off of her upcoming debut album, which will be released through Universal Republic Records on November 10th.

It’s really interesting to see how her Southern musical influence, fuses with the pop sound. It’s definitely worth a listen.

waiting..pretense…and her return?

“On the surface, I was calm: in secret, without really admitting it, I was waiting for something. Her return? How could I have been waiting for that? We all know that we are material creatures, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and not even the power of all our feelings combined can defeat those laws. All we can do is detest them. The age-old faith of lovers and poets in the power of love, stronger than death, that finis vitae sed non amoris, is a lie, useless and not even funny. So must one be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going?

Must I go on living here then, among the objects we both had touched, in the air she had breathed? In the name of what? In the hope of her return? I hoped for nothing. And yet I lived in expectation. Since she had gone, that was all that remained. I did not know what achievements, what mockery, even what tortures still awaited me. I knew nothing, and I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past.”
— Stanislaw Lem

the pretty how town and ee cummings

“anyone lived in a pretty how town

(with up so floating many bells down)

spring summer autumn winter

he sang his didn’t he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)

 cared for anyone not at all

they sowed their isn’t they reaped t

heir same sun moon stars rain

 

 children guessed

(but only a few and down they forgot as up they grew autumn winter spring summer)

 that no

one loved him more by more

 when by now and tree by leaf

she laughed his joy

she cried his grief

bird by snow and stir

by still anyone’s any was all to her

someones married their everyones

 laughed their cryings and did their dance

 (sleep wake hope and then)

they said their nevers

 they slept their dream

 stars rain sun moon

(and only the snow can begin

 to explain how children are apt

 to forget to remember

with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died

 i guess (and noone stooped to kiss his face)

busy folk buried them

side by side

little by little

 and was by was all

by all and deep by deep

 and more by more

 they dream their sleep

 noone and anyone earth

 by april wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men

(both dong and ding)

summer autumn winter spring

reaped their sowing

 and went their came sun moon stars rain” — e.e. cummings

Perhaps

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke

assumptions and that real life thang

 

We often assume that once two people have come together, you know that couple, the one every one say gee “they are so good together”,  “they are just too cute”, “they are adorable”, they should then for some magical reason, never part. Yet the true news on the street is that relationships are always ending, and people drift apart as naturally as they turn toward new connections.

I am not suggesting that we should simply be realistic and acknowledge the bitter truth that relationships end; the sense that they will go on forever is always a part and a hope of making new connections. We appease outselves with old overused phrases like  “if it was meant to be” and so on and so forth.

But..when they do end..and many do just end..we may have to face the dark and demanding will of the gods, which often goes against all human desire. We can take that lesson home and lodge it in our hearts-life is a constant interchange between human will and divine providence and intervention. If you ever doubt that watch the 11 PM news and see on that very same street you were driving on 4-5 hours ago there was tonight at 10PM a horrific accident..there for the grace of god you are safe in the comfort of your living room. We need both the courage to planand create a life, and the piety and respect of the most profound kind in relation to the mysteries that are the underpining of your daily life.