Faith

Naomi Shihab Nye, American poet and writer, was born of a Palestinian Muslim father and an American Christian mother. This excerpt is from an essay on their stay/visits to Jerusalem, where her father's family still lives in a village:

"My father and I hike to the tomb of Sheikh Omar, high on a hill. We must overstep the lentil fields to get there. My father stoops to pluck a handful of fresh green lentils, saying, "Once you eat them raw, you never forget the taste." Sometimes I feel this way about my whole life. Who was Omar, when did he live? My father says he was a disciple of Mohammed. He lived a long time ago. The villagers know this is his tomb, so they have built a rugged mound of a mosque to honour him.

Inside, faded prayer rugs cover the floors. A ring of half-burnt candles stands in one corner. We take off our shoes and kneel. I don't really know how to pray like a Muslim, but I know there is something very affecting about people putting down their shovels and brooms five times a day to do this. I like how life continues in the rooms where someone is praying. No one stops talking or stares; it is part of life, the denominator. Everything else is a dancing away."

Page 57, 'One Village', from 'Never in a Hurry, Essays on People and Places', by Naomi Shihab Nye

The ethos of Individualism

"Pre-industrial societies have little notion of a person as a separate entity. A Nigerian psychiatrist told me that, when a psychiatric clinic was first set up in a rural district of Nigeria to treat the mentally ill, the family invariably accompanied the sufferer and insisted upon being present at the patient's interview with the psychiatrist. The idea that the patient might exist as an individual apart from the family, or that he might have personal problems which he did not want to share with them, did not occur to Nigerians who were still living a traditional village life.

In his book Social Anthropology, Sir Edmund Leach refers to "the ethos of individualism which is central to the contemporary Western society but which is notably absent from most of the societies which social anthropologists study."

Page 78, 'The Significance of the Individual', from 'Solitude', Anthony Storr

The anchor, the ocean, the forgetting to be who I am

What is Lost
Jorge Luis Borges

I wonder where my life is, the one that could
have been and never was, the daring one
or the one of gloomy dread, that other thing
which could as well have been the sword or shield
but never was? I wonder where is my lost
Persian or Norwegian ancestor,
where is the chance of my not being blind,
where is the anchor, the ocean, where the forgetting
to be who I am? I wonder where the pure
night is that the unlettered working day
entrusts to the rough laborer so that he
can also feel the love of literature.
I also think about a certain mate
who waited for me once, perhaps still waits.

The audience of alternate selves

Note Autobiographical

"Every time he speaks of himself you sense something missing, something not quite true. It's not that you doubt his sincerity - on the contrary, you know he's making every effort to be honest. It's just that by putting himself in the spotlight he has blinded himself to his own shadow, to the audience of alternate selves who watch him from the wings. He tells you what he sees, but all the while the real self remains invisible, like light seen from the inside of a bulb.

It's like the difference between the way you picture yourself and your face in a photograph. The way you hold your breath at immigration, waiting to see if the man examining your passport will accept you for who you are."

Aseem Kaul, 'Etudes'

Most dangerous is the death of our dreams

Sabse khatarnak hota hai hamaare sapnon ka mar jaana

Sabse khatarnak hota hai murda shanti se bhar jana,
Na hona tadap ka, sab kuch sahan kar jana,
Ghar se nikalna kaam par, aur kaam se loutkar ghar aana,
Sabse khatarnak hota hai,
Hamare sapno ka mar jana.

..............................................................

Most dangerous is the death of our dreams

Most dangerous is
To be filled with dead peace
Not to feel agony and bear it all,
Leaving home for work
And from work return home
Most dangerous is the death of our dreams.

By Paash
(Paash was the pen name of Avtar Singh Sandhu (September 9, 1950 - March 23, 1988), an Indian poet. His strongly left-wing views were reflected in his poetry.He was killed by Khalistani terrorists in 1988 when he was on holiday in his home state, Punjab )

I am not done with my changes

The Layers

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.

When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.

One of the sons was sad sometimes...

Interview, Saudi Arabia

The fathers do not know
what the sons have done.
They are waiting for the sons to call home,
to say it was a mistake,
it was not me.
Somewhere on another street
their boys in short white pants
are walking proudly
in a world they love.
Oranges peeled by hand,
frying onions,
marbles in dust.
Whatever might happen
is shiny, strong.

One of the sons was sad sometimes.
No one knew why.
There is no way, says his brother,
he could fly a plane.

The fathers blink back tears.
They have no evidence at all.
Please tell them something better.
Their sons went to school,
were normal, good.
Whatever would happen
might still be changed.

'You and Yours', Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye

The Sunday After

Beautiful music, from this young Viennese composer, Albors Askari: http://soundcloud.com/dreimalbla

Breath. The Sunday After. It's Alright. Too much rain. Code Name - Dark Matter.

Playing on Repeat since the day I heard it first. I start the day with this. This music is a morning prayer. During the day, it brings me a certain stillness and peace amidst all the stress.
And in the evening, it becomes a lullaby.

Found him here.

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/albors.pascal.askari

* Photo from Google Images.

Kagemu à Paris

An incredible art/dance piece by artist Nobuyuki Hanabusa and dancer Katsumi Sakakura, together known as Kagemu.

'Black Sun' is a a combination of traditional and contemporary Japanese dance/martial arts with exquisitely choreographed motion-graphics:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGg-O_3Q1LM&feature=player_embedded

Read the interview of the duo: Kagemu's 'Black Sun' Synchronizes Projected Video With Japanese Dance.

Found it here: http://thereisnocavalry.wordpress.com/ - thank you, David.

* Photo from Google Images.

Borges

Such beauty, that you almost stop breathing.

The Causes
Jorge Luis Borges

The sunsets and the generations
The days and none was first.
The freshness of water in Adam's
Throat. Orderly paradise.
The eye deciphering the darkness.
The love of wolves at dawn.
The word. The hexameter. The mirror.
The Tower of Babel and pride.
The moon which the Chaldeans gazed at.
The uncountable sands of the Ganges.
Chuang Tzu and the butterfly that dreams him.
The golden apples on the islands.
The steps in the wandering labyrinth.
Penelope's infinite tapestry.
The circular time of the Stoics.
The coin in the mouth of the dead man.
The sword's weight on the scale.
Each drop of water in the water clock.
The eagles, the memorable days, the legions.
Caesar on the morning of Pharsalus.
The shadow of crosses over the earth.
The chess and algebra of the Persians.
The footprints of long migration.
The sword's conquest of kingdoms.
The relentless compass. The open sea.
The clock echoing in the memory.
The king executed by the ax.
The incalculable dust that was armies.
The voice of the nightingale in Denmark.
The calligrapher's meticulous line.
The suicide's face in the mirror.
The gambler's card. Greedy gold.
The forms of a cloud in the desert.
Every arabesque in the kaleidoscope.
Each regret and each tear.
All those things were made perfectly clear
So our hands could meet.

And where you are is where you are not

They are selling calendars at the traffic signals.
Calendars for 2012.
No. Not again.
Not another year.
You are so tired.


                                  "..You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
    You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
    You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
    You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
    You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not."

T.S.Eliot, 'East Coker' from 'The Four Quartets'

Postcards

...A universe that includes you

can't be all bad, but

does it? At this distance

you're a mirage, a glossy image

fixed in the posture

of the last time I saw you.

Turn you over, there's the place

for the address. Wish you were

here. Love comes

in waves like the ocean, a sickness which goes on

and on, a hollow cave

in the head, filling & pounding, a kicked ear.

Margaret Atwood

Purpose

Kiro, the best student of a karate master of the shotokan style in Nagasaki, easily defeated a long-haired young man in an August Moon festival karate tournament. Later that night, he sees the young man being chased by the villagers for stealing a piglet which he held under his arm. Kiro goes to confront the young man. Without dropping the pig, the young man fought ferociously and with a side kick sent Kiro spinning backwards and on to the ground. After he escapes the astounded Kiro asks his master how a weaker opponent, with a pig under one arm, and tired after being chased, managed to fight so well and defeat him.

The master, in answer, narrated this Zen story:

"A Zen master was out walking with his student. The student saw the fox chasing a rabbit and said to his master, “I wonder which one will win?"
"According to an old fable", his master replied, "the rabbit will get away from the fox."
"Surely not, the fox is faster".
"But the rabbit will still escape", insisted the Zen master.
"Why are you so certain?” asked the student.
"Because the fox is running for his dinner but the rabbit is running for his life."

Page 68. 'Beaten by a Novice'
from 'Myths and Legends of the Martial Arts' by Peter Lewis

A View of Delft

A view of Delft, by Johannes Vermeer

In that town,
across the water
where all has been seen
and the bricks are cherished like sparrows,
in that town like a letter from home
read again and again in a port,
in that town with its library of tiles
and its addresses recalled by Johannes Vermeer
who died in debt,
in that town across the water
where the dead take the census
and there are no vacant rooms
for his gaze occupies them all,
where the sky is waiting
to have news of a birth,
in that town which pours from the eyes
of those who left it,
there
between two chimes of the morning,
when fish are sold in the square
and the maps on the walls
show the depth of the sea,
in that town
I am preparing for your arrival.

Page 100, 'And our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos' by John Berger

Photo from Google Images

Sacred Time

From Mircea Eliade's 'The Sacred and the Profane, The Nature of Religion':

Profane Duration and Sacred Time

For religious man, time too, like space, is neither homogeneous nor continuous. On the one hand, there are the intervals of a sacred time, the time of the festivals (by far the greater part of which are periodical); on the other there is profane time, ordinary temporal duration, in which acts without religious meaning have their setting. Between these two kinds of time there is, of course, solution of continuity; but by means of rites religious man can pass without danger from ordinary temporal duration to sacred time.

One essential difference between these two qualities of time strikes us immediately: by its very nature sacred time is reversible in the sense that, properly speaking, it is a primordial mythical time made present. Every religious festival, any liturgical time, represents the reactualization of a sacred event that took place in a mythical past, "in the beginning". Religious participation in a festival implies emerging from ordinary temporal duration and reintegration of the mythical time reactualized by the festival itself.