” If the house of the world is dark, love will find a way to make windows.”
– Rumi
Tag: Quote
Never The Twain…
“If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.”
– Mark Twain
Pictured recently, yours truly, seated with a bronze statue of the great man (real name: Samuel Clemens). As close as I will get to meeting him!
I have long admired Twain’s wry humour and sage veracity.
Like the quote above – you laugh first and then the wisdom drags you in and sits you right down, as you reflect on hard life lessons.
I sometimes feel his writing gets me, rather than the other way around.
When I was a young man I took a Greyhound bus from Chicago to New Orleans ( helluva long ride!), and the road more or less followed the Mississippi River south after St. Louis. My best companion on the journey was Twain’s ‘Life On the Mississippi’, published in 1883 . A great read – fantastic tales of diverse folk, working and up to all sorts otherwise, on the river back in the day (it’s well worth searching out).
It just made my trip feel damn boring by comparison though…
The Same Voice That Calls
“Whether we call it sacrifice, or poetry, or adventure, it is always the same voice that calls”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Just one question really – what is it that calls you over your known edge, past your fear, to that thing beyond ?
Through The Twilight
“You cannot, in human experience, rush into the light. You have to go through the twilight into the broadening day before the noon comes and the full sun is upon the landscape.” – Woodrow Wilson
Those words sum up my own experience; my picture recreates its memory and serves as a reminder.
When you know a darkness, it is tempting, when you are leaving it, to want to parade in the fullness of light.
However, in the ‘tween time – the twilight – you get to really know show the shapes and forms of the important things, dimly lit as they are.You feel them deeply, even as you peer though the mystical interplay of shadows and light.
There will be plenty of time for full light to illumine all the details…
Avoid The Void ?
“Sometimes we do not want to avoid the Void. When someone gives us flowers, it’s nice to have an empty vase. Finding an empty train carriage is a stroke of luck; an empty motorway is almost a miracle. Making the first pen strokes in an empty notebook or the first steps in an empty new house are sources of pure delight.”
-Louise van Swaaij & Jean Klare,‘The Atlas Of Experience’
For a void is not nothing! Even if a void is a scary prospect, it is also the realm of the infinite possible.
Fall/Rise
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall”
– Confucius
( or,an ebb tide will give way to a flood…)
- Huka Falls , Taupo NZ
Reflected In You
“And since you know you cannot see yourself, so well as by reflection, I, your glass, will modestly discover to yourself, that of yourself which you yet know not of”
-William Shakespeare
Pigeons In The Plaza
“Pigeons: They’ve got wings, but they walk a lot.” – Karl Pilkington
Shallow, but true.
As shallow as a sundrenched Spanish plaza littered with pigeons not using their wings much…
New Adventures
So, off on the big bird to Great Britain and Spain today.
The thrill of the new ,and of an adventure half a world away beckons.
I really like this quote from Bill Bryson which neatly encapsulates why travel is so beneficial for you:
“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted”
I expect to see plenty of things familiar to others, but novel to me, to feed this blog and hope to share them with you.
First things first, though….where the hell are my sleeping pills and earplugs for the 29 hour flight from New Zealand?
Jailbird
” If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence.”
– Charles Bukowski
A Whole Handful
Five fingers, a whole handful, of toetoe plumes in the still Auckland evening.
All you can hold in the moment, and the moment is all you have.
“From one seed a whole handful: that was what it meant to say the bounty of the earth” – J.M.Coetzee
Little moments, even quiet ones, are full in themselves but are also seeds of abundance.
Grief And The Garden Of Compassion
“Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep yourself open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in life’s search for love and wisdom.”
– Rumi
The End Is The Beginning
Auckland’s narrow Okahu Bay Wharf (seen from a different angle in the previous post Above The Wharf, Over The Sea ) tapers to a point in the distance.
Where it ends,the sea begins.
An end is always a beginning of something.
“You only grow by coming to the end of something and by beginning something else.” – John Irving, ‘The World According To Garp’
(Questions tossed up by the tide: So we know the pier ends, but does the sea have an end?… and if it does, what begins after the sea?)
Not One, A Thousand
” You are not one, you are a thousand. Light your lantern.”
-Rumi
A multitude of hanging lanterns covers a ceiling in Penang, one of my favourite cities.
Spectacular and uplifting (or down dangling ,take your pick)!
If it is not too much of a cultural mish-mash to attach a quote from a Persian poet and philosopher to a Chinese icon such as these lanterns, I’ll tell you why:
Sometimes the world is just overwhelming, and we feel that we are insignificant in the face of it.
But when we project our true selves and passions, we can connect with those around us .Somehow,and this is sort of mysterious, we become “bigger”and grow. As we ourselves are lit up and inspired, we have the power to inspire others too.
Soon the whole ceiling is covered…
The First Day Of Spring
“With the coming of spring I am calm again”
– Gustav Mahler
It has been a tumultuous August in Auckland, wet and windy for the most part.
But to be expected. That is what August brings. And I don’t mind really.
Spring ,according to the calendar anyway, has arrived today. Sunny and calm!
Thought I would mark it with this image of a flower from my garden that appears around this time every year.
Not quite sure what it is, but it doesn’t matter.
It is a signal of spring, of renewal, and anticipation of good things to come.
And, like the weather this morning, I feel calm. I struggle with generalised anxiety,so gladly accept that feeling!
The Presence Of Passion
“The presence of passion within you is the greatest gift you can receive. Treat it as a miracle.”
– Wayne Dyer
Pure And Blessed
“Blessed are the pure in heart” reads the inscription on this grave in a cemetery close to where I live. Great words, and maybe they befitted the deceased.
If memory serves me correctly, the words are those of Jesus ,from the Sermon on the Mount.
You can cast doubt on religion, but not those words.
When we and our motives are pure – and it may not be much of the time (in my case anyway!) -things, blessings, flow, on and through us ,upon the world around us.
You don’t have to be the Dalai Lama or Mother Theresa – anyone can know those small moments of purity when you do the right thing for the right reasons or are the right person in the right place at the right time.
Purity.
Simple but elusive and fleeting.
You can’t seek it, any more than you can blessings.
But when a moment or someone is pure you just know.
And are blessed.
Endless Sleep And The Jazz Cat
“Cats have it all – admiration, endless sleep and company only when they want it”
– Rod McKuen
It’s August ,and being a Leo myself, it’s feline time.
Pictured is our, now sadly gone, family cat Mingus (named for the Afro-American jazz great Charles Mingus), who was an excellent sleeper but great company too when he actually woke (and wanted it).
I was even suckered into this admiring shot while he slept in the sun…damn!
A very idiosyncratic beast he was. Preferred human food over cat food and could sense when someone was sick, and stay close by. Liked music.He was a La Perm breed (aka the “Alpaca Cat”); had unusual wool-like fur that would freak people out a bit when touching it.
A story about the cat and his name: I watched the 1968 black and white documentary on Mingus (the jazz one) with a friend in London. In the doco, Charlie wanders around his New York loft muttering random stuff and at one point fires a loaded rifle into the ceiling, bringing down paint and dust. Just a little unhinged, really. Years later we had just got Mingus (the feline), and I told my friend his name over the phone. He asked whether he was black. I said, no, just slightly crazy..
Ok, done.This blog’s sole cat meme is officially out of the way…
Red Lanterns Strung
“He liked to observe emotions ; they were like red lanterns strung along the dark unknown of another’s personality, marking vulnerable points.”
– Ayn Rand, from ‘Atlas Shrugged’
The Descent
Ok, right turn, straight down, left turn….then what?
Just remember these simple directions:
“The descent to Hades is the same from every place.”
– Anaxagoras (Greek philosopher)
No believer in a physical hell, but metaphysically, yeah, and we can all find it alright.
If you feel yourself going down, grip tight the proverbial handrail, or latch onto any inspiration that will make you realise that stairs work in two directions…
ebb then flood 