the most important things

.

Let's go drifting through the trees
Let's go sailing on the sea
Let's go dancing on the juke joint floor
And leave our troubles all behind and have a party

So easily forgotten are the most important things
Like the melody and the moonlight in your eyes
And a song that lasts forever, keeps on gettin' better
All the time

'Cause life is beautiful
Life is wonderous
Every star above is shining just for us
Life is beautiful on a stormy night
Somewhere in the world, the sun is shining bright

I get crazy, so afraid
That I might lose you one fine day
And I'll be nothing but a tired old man
And I don't wanna be without you at the party

So easily forgotten, the most important thing
Is that I love you, I do
And I want to spend my days and nights
Walking through this crazy world with you

Life is beautiful
Life is wonderous
Every star above is shining just for us
Life is beautiful on a stormy night
Somewhere in the world, the sun is shining bright

—Keb' Mo' 

.

one's not half two

.

one's not half two.  It's two are halves of one:

which halves reintegrating,shall occur

no death and any quantity;but than

all numerable mosts the actual more

minds ignorant of stern miraculous

this everytruth-beware of heartless them

(given the scalpel,they dissect a kiss;

or,sold the reason,they  undream a dream)

one is the song which friends and angels sing:

all murdering lies by mortals told make two.

Let liars wilt,repaying life they're loaned;

we(by a gift called dying born)must grow

deep in dark least ourselves remembering

love only rides his year.

                                    All lose, whole find

—e. e. cummings

 

.

But if you will think of ourselves as coming out of the earth, rather than having been thrown in here from somewhere else, you see that we are the earth, we are the consciousness of the earth. 

These are the eyes of the earth. 

And this is the voice of the earth.

―Joseph Campbell

The Power of Myth
wait - what ?

.

Although the evening is cold and starless
And the rain is raging,
I'm still singing my song during this period,
Don't know who's listening.

Though the world is drowned in war and fear,
At some point
Burning secretly, if no one sees them,
The love continues.


—Hermann Hesse

.

Your head is a loving forest full of song birds. —E.E. Cummings

 

.

In truth, everything and everyone 
is a shadow of the Beloved. 

And our seeking is His seeking, 
and our words are His words. 

We search for Him here and there. 

While looking right at Him, 
sitting by His side, we ask: 
'O Beloved, where is the Beloved?' 

Enough with such questions! 

Let silence take you to the core of life. 

All your talk is worthless when compared 
with one whisper of the Beloved.


—Rumi

.

Are you looking for me?

I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours. 

You will not find me in the stupas,
not in Indian shrine rooms,
nor in synagogues,
nor in cathedrals:
not in masses,
nor kirtans,
not in legs winding around your own neck,
nor in eating nothing but vegetables. 

When you really look for me,
you will see me instantly —
you will find me in the tiniest house of time. 

Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.

—Kabir

 

.

 

close your eyes. fall in love. stay there. 

—Rumi

.

 

once there was, and once there wasn’t

  

.

'once upon a time' in other languages: 

 

korean: “back when tigers used to smoke” (호랑이 담배 피우던 시절에) [x]

czech: “beyond seven mountain ranges, beyond seven rivers” (za sedmero horami a sedmero řekami)

georgian: “there was, and there was not, there was…” (იყო და არა იყო რა, იყო…)

hausa: “a story, a story. let it go, let it come.” [x]

romanian: “there once was, (as never before)… because if there wasn’t, it wouldn’t have been told” (A fost odată, ca niciodată că dacă n-ar fi fost, nu s-ar mai povesti…)

lithuanian: “beyond nine seas, beyond nine lagoons: (už devynių jūrų, už devynių marių)

catalan: “see it here that in that time in which beasts spoke and people were silent…” (vet aquí que en aquell temps que les bèsties parlaven i les persones callaven…) [x]

turkish: “Once there was, and once there wasn’t. In the long-distant days of yore, when haystacks winnowed sieves, when genies played jereed in the old bathhouse, [when] fleas were barbers, [when] camels were town criers, [and when] I softly rocked my baby grandmother to sleep in her creaking cradle, there was/lived, in an exotic land, far, far away, a/an…* (Bir varmış, bir yokmuş. Evvel zaman içinde, kalbur saman içinde, cinler cirit oynar iken eski hamam içinde, pireler berber [iken], develer tellal [iken], ben ninemin beşiğini tıngır mıngır sallar iken, uzak diyarların birinde…)

.

The language of birds is very ancient, and like other ancient modes of speech, very elliptical; little is said, but much is meant and understood. 


—Gilbert White
Letter XLIII, Selborne, 

9 September 1778

 

.

(all) creatures have territories ...

for some birds, their song is a fence.

—Wendell Berry 

.

every trust survives

  

.

I said it to you for the clouds
I said it to you for the tree of the sea
For each wave for the birds in the leaves
For the pebbles of sound
For familiar hands
For the eye that becomes landscape or face
And sleep returns it the heaven of its colour
For all that night drank
For the network of roads
For the open window for a bare forehead
I said it to you for your thoughts for your words
Every caress every trust survives.


—Paul Eluard

.

behind all words

  

.

The skreak and skritter of evening gone
And grackles gone and sorrows of the sun,
The sorrows of sun, too, gone ... the moon and moon,
The yellow moon of words about the nightingale
In measureless measures, not a bird for me
But the name of a bird and the name of a nameless air
I have never–shall never hear. And yet beneath

The stillness of everything gone, and being still,
Being and sitting still, something resides,
Some skreaking and skrittering residuum,
And grates these evasions of the nightingale
Though I have never–shall never hear that bird.
And the stillness is in the key, all of it is,
The stillness is all in the key of that desolate sound.


—Wallace Stevens

.

Happy are those who know:
Behind all words, the Unsayable stands;
And from that source alone, the Infinite
Crosses over to gladness, and us 

Free of our bridges
Built with the stone of distinctions;
So that always, within each delight,
We gaze at what is purely single and joined.


—Rainer Maria Rilke

.

cosmic life

  

.

Standing on the moon 
I got no cobweb on my shoe 
Standing on the moon 
I'm feeling so alone and blue 
I see the gulf of Mexico 
As tiny as a tear 
The coast of California 
Must be somewhere over here - over here

Standing on the moon 
I see the battle rage below 
Standing on the moon 
I see the soldiers come and go 
There's a metal flag beside me 
Someone planted long ago 
Old Glory standing stiffly 
Crimson, white and indigo - indigo

I see all of Southeast Asia 
I can see El Salvador 
I hear the cries of children 
And the other songs of war 
It's like a mighty melody 
That rings down from the sky 
Standing here upon the moon 
I watch it all roll by - all roll by

Standing on the moon 
With nothing else to do 
A lovely view of heaven 
But I'd rather be with you

Standing on the moon 
I see a shadow on the sun 
Standing on the moon 
The stars go fading one by one 
I hear a cry of victory 
And another of defeat 
A scrap of age old lullaby 
Down some forgotten street

Standing on the moon 
Where talk is cheap and vision true 
Standing on the moon 
But I would rather be with you 
Somewhere in San Francisco 
On a back porch in July 
Just looking up to heaven 
At this crescent in the sky

Standing on the moon 
With nothing left to do 
A lovely view of heaven 
But I'd rather be with you - be with you

Standing On the Moon
Grateful Dead

.

Now we have to get back the cosmos, and it can’t be done by a trick. The great range of responses that have fallen dead in us have to come to life again. It has taken two thousand years to kill them. Who knows how long it will take to bring them to life.

When I hear modern people complain of being lonely then I know what has happened. They have lost the cosmos.

It is nothing human and personal that we are short of. What we lack is cosmic life, the sun in us and the moon in us.


—D.H. Lawrence
Apocalypse

.

each to each

  

.

 

Cosmic forces move in masses, waves, currents constantly constituting and reconstituting beings and objects, movements and happenings, entering into them, passing through them, forming themselves in them, throwing themselves out from them on other beings and objects. 

Each natural individual is a receptacle of these cosmic forces and a dynamo for their propagation; there passes from each to each a constant stream of mental and vital energies, and these run too in cosmic waves and currents no less than the forces of physical Nature. 

All this action is veiled from our surface mind’s direct sense and knowledge, but it is known and felt by the inner being, though only through a direct contact; when the inner being enters into the cosmic consciousness, it is still more widely, inclusively, intimately aware of this play of cosmic forces.

—Sri Aurobindo

The Hidden Forces of Life

 

.

 

I dreamed I spoke in another’s language,

I dreamed I lived in another’s skin,

I dreamed I was my own beloved,

I dreamed I was a tiger’s kin.

I dreamed that Eden lived inside me,

And when I breathed a garden came,

I dreamed I knew all of Creation,

I dreamed I knew the Creator’s name.

I dreamed–and this dream was the finest–

That all I dreamed was real and true,

And we would live in joy forever,

You in me, and me in you.

—Clive Barker 

Days of Magic, Nights of War 

.

tighten to nothing

  

.

All things
are too small
to hold me,
I am so vast 

In the Infinite
I reach
for the Uncreated
I have
touched it,
it undoes me
wider than wide 
Everything else
is too narrow
You know this well,
you who are also there

Tighten
to nothing
the circle
that is
the world's things 
Then the Naked 
circle
can grow wide,
enlarging,
embracing all


—Hadewijch, l or ll (13th Century), 
Jane Hirshfield version
Women in Praise of the Sacred

.

what are the basic assumptions that underlie language and mathematics?

 

.

We invented phonetic writing so we could put our sounds down on paper and, by glancing at a page, hear someone speaking in our head—an invention that became so widespread in the last few thousand years that we hardly ever stop to consider how astonishing it is.


—Carl Sagan
Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death

.

 

There are nine different words for the color blue in the Spanish Maya dictionary but just three Spanish translations, leaving six [blue] butterflies that can be seen only by the Maya, proving that when a language dies six butterflies disappear from the consciousness of the earth.

—Earl Shorris

The Last Word: Can the World’s Small Languages Be Saved?

 .

afdrif, the fate of somebody
afturganga, a ghost, “one who walks again”
álfadans, dance of the elves
átt, the direction of the wind
augabragð, the twinkling of an eye
álfatrú, belief in fairies
bíldóttur, having black spots around the eyes of animals
blámóða, blue mist
blika, a cover of clouds, often foreboding storm or rain
blær, soft, calm wind

draugagangur, the walking of ghosts, a haunting
draumaland, land of dreams
dúnalogn, calm as death
dýjamosi, bright green moss growing in quagmires
fenna, to fill with snow
fjallavættur, a mountain spirit
fjúka, carried away by the wind

flygja, a ghost who accompanies a certain person
föl, a thick film of snow covering the ground
galdraöld, the age of magic
grængolandi, deep and dark green
gullbúinn, adorned with gold
hlakka, the cry of a bird of prey
hrafnagervi, the outward form of ravens

huldurdalur, hidden valley
kaf, to plunge into deep water
kollgáta, the true answer to the riddle
kossleit, looking for kisses
leirskáld, a bad poet

lumma, a pancake, or, the palm of a small hand
mói, ground covered with heather
morgungyðja, the goddess of the morning
mosavaxinn, overgrown with moss
náttúrufegurð, the beauty of nature
norðankaldi, a light breeze from the north
rammgöldróttur, full of witchcraft and wizardry
rósóttur, with a design of roses
selslíki, the shape of a seal
sjódraugur, the ghost of a drowned man

smáminnka, getting smaller and smaller
sólskin, sunshine
stirndur, set full of stars
sumarsól, the sun in the summer
sæbrattur, rising steeply out of the sea
sælurdalur, the valley of bliss
undirsæng, a soft feather mattress
veturnætur, a few days before the first day of winter


—needful Icelandic words

.

kossleit

💗

words for love

  

.

Sanskrit has ninety-six words for love; ancient Persian has eighty, Greek three, and English only one. This is indicative of the poverty of awareness or emphasis that we give to that tremendously important realm of feeling.

Eskimos have thirty words for snow, because it is a life-and death matter to them to have exact information about the element they live with so intimately. If we had a vocabulary of thirty words for love we would immediately be richer and more intelligent in this human element so close to our heart. 

An Eskimo probably would die of clumsiness if he had only one word for snow; we are close to dying of loneliness because we have only one word for love. 

Of all the Western languages, English may be the most lacking when it come to feeling. 


—Robert Johnson
The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden

.

How astonishing it is that language can almost mean, 
and frightening that it does not quite. 

What we feel most has no name but amber, archers, 
cinnamon, horses and birds.


—Jack Gilbert
The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart, excerpt 

.

They can be like a sun, words.

They can do for the heart what light can for a field. 

—John of the Cross

.

I heard a man say a poem once, he said, ‘All that lives is holy.’ —Steinbeck

 

.

In daily speech, where we don’t stop to consider every word, we all use phrases like “the ordinary world,” “ordinary life,” “the ordinary course of events” 

But in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. 

Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. 

Not a single day and not a single night after it.


—Wisława Szymborska

.

I would give all metaphors

in return for one word

drawn out of my breast like a rib

for one word

contained within the boundaries

of my skin


—Zbigniew Herbert
Czesław Miłosz version 

.

behind the bodily world

   

.

The Maitri Upanishad mentions two aspects of Brahman, the higher and the lower. The higher Brahman being the unmanifest Supreme Reality which is soundless and totally quiescent and restful, the lower being the Shabda-Brahman which manifests itself into the everchanging restless cosmos through the medium of sound vibrations. 

The Upanishad says that “Two Brahmans there are to be known: One as sound and the other as Brahman Supreme.” 

The process of manifestation is from soundless to sound, from noumenality to phenomenality, from perfect quiescence of "being” to the restlessness of “becoming”.

—Sudhakar S.D, 1988, p83

.

 

It is I who must begin.

Once I begin, once I try --
here and now,
right where I am,
not excusing myself
by saying things
would be easier elsewhere,
without grand speeches and
ostentatious gestures,
but all the more persistently
-- to live in harmony
with the "voice of Being," as I
understand it within myself
-- as soon as I begin that,
I suddenly discover,
to my surprise, that
I am neither the only one,
nor the first,
nor the most important one
to have set out
upon that road.

Whether all is really lost
or not depends entirely on
whether or not I am lost.


—Vaclav Havel

.

All beings
are words of God,
His music, His
art.

Sacred books we are, for the infinite camps
in our
souls.

Every act reveals God and expands His Being.
I know that may be hard
to comprehend.

All creatures are doing their best
to help God in His birth
of Himself.

Enough talk for the night
He is laboring in me;

I need to be silent
for a while,

worlds are forming
in my
heart.

—Meister Eckhart

.

what is the nature of the world?

    

Paris by night, from the International Space Station

click to see

.

You are like a dewdrop, on a multidimensional spider's web in the morning. And if you look at that thing carefully, you will see in every dewdrop the reflections of all the other dewdrops. So the way that dewdrop looks goes with the way all the other ones look, you see.

—Alan Watts

.

This must be well grasped: the world hangs on the 

thread of consciousness.  No consciousness, no world. 

—Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj 

.

She kept a diary, in which she wrote impulsive thoughts.  

Seeing the moon in the sky, her own heart surcharged, 
she went and wrote: 

‘If I were the moon, I know where I would fall down.’

—D. H. Lawrence 
The Rainbow

.

there are moments in moist love when heaven is jealous of what we on earth can do. —Hafiz

 

.

.

 

A valley and above it forests in autumn colors.
A voyager arrives, a map led him here. 

Or perhaps memory. Once, long ago, in the sun,
When the first snow fell, riding this way
He felt joy, strong, without reason,
Joy of the eyes. Everything was the rhythm
Of shifting trees, of a bird in flight,
Of a train on the viaduct, a feast of motion. 

He returns years later, has no demands.
He wants only one, most precious thing:
To see, purely and simply, without name,
Without expectations, fears, or hopes,
At the edge where there is no I or not-I.

—Czesław Miłosz

This Only
Robert Hass version

 

.

This world is just a little place, 

just the red in the sky, before the sun rises, 

so let us keep fast hold of hands, 

that when the birds begin, 

none of us be missing.

—Emily Dickinson

 

.

You are the soul of the soul of the universe, and your name is Love. —Rumi

.

We believe in a personal, unique, and separate identity; but if we dare to examine it, we find that this identity depends entirely on an endless collection of things to prop it up: our name, our "biography", our partners, family, home, job, friends, credit. It is on their fragile and transient support that we rely for our security...

Without our familiar props, we are faced with just ourselves, a person we do not know, an unnerving stranger with whom we have been living all the time but we never really wanted to meet. Isn't that why we have tried to fill every moment of time with noise and activity, however boring or trivial, to ensure that we are never left in silence with this stranger on our own?

—Sogyal Rinpoche

. 

Are you looking for me?

I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours. 

You will not find me in the stupas,
not in Indian shrine rooms,
nor in synagogues,
nor in cathedrals:
not in masses,
nor kirtans,
not in legs winding around your own neck,
nor in eating nothing but vegetables. 

When you really look for me,
you will see me instantly —
you will find me in the tiniest house of time. 

Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath.

—Kabir

.

All of you is holy. 

You are already more and less than whatever you can know. 

Breathe out, look in, let go. 

—John Welwood

.