I love what it says about the strength of a union. What it means to be connected. How to not let heaven or hell get in the way. And what it means to approach the unknown with your beloved.
Oh yeah, and it's a little creepy. But that's balanced with its solitary romance: "On the blackest of moons."
DCFC: "I will follow you into the dark"
For the last two months, I have been loving Indian food. There is a wonderful Indian restaurant called Ganesh Indian Cuisine that makes food that has me craving it all the time. So much, in fact, that I try to find substitutes for delicious curry anywhere I go: Thai restaurants, Vietnamese restaurants, my own crockpot, you get the idea.
I blame my obsession not only on the delicious yellow curries and marsalas, pistachio ice cream, rice puddings, and various fried puffed things. I think it has to do with the books I read. The Afghani books The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns put me to craving naan, which sent me back to Ganesh to begin with. And now I've been reading two Indian-American books, Interpreter of Maladies and Unaccustomed Earth. As my imagination dives into the Indian culture, I guess my taste buds can't get enough of India either.
It's actually GIMP, an open source editing program, which I've been using for simple cropping the last couple of months. This is not at all what I ended to do to this photo, but I like its strange near postmodernism.
The flower itself is completely unedited. Isn't spring amazing in its vibrancy?
This crocus variety is brought to you by one of Kevin's flowerbeds. It's a smooth, buttery yellow: more timid than the bold announcers I planted. I love them in their subtlety.
Post title by Pablo Neruda
Here's a junk photo I took, paired with my new obsession of Pablo Neruda.
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers
Sometimes our accidents reveal so much.
I'm not sure I need an even more immediate way to publish my thoughts, so this may be for a limited time only.
I don't have much to add to this poem, other than a delicate picture from my backyard and an emerging realization that intuition, insight, poetry come at the strangest times, searching for us.
POETRY
And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.
I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.
- Pablo Neruda
Because I simply cannot resist the beauty that manifests each new day in my garden:
By this time, like one who had set out on his way by night, and travelled through a region of smooth or idle dreams, our history now arrives on the confines, where daylight and truth meet us with a clear dawn, representing to our view, though at a far distance, true colours and shapes.
- John Milton
As a sort of follow-up to my last post, I've been meaning to post the Prayer of St. Francis. I loved this since I sung it in church choir as a teenager.
I think his prayer resembles the Serenity Prayer - in fact, I believe AA uses both of these prayers to teach health, surrender, and responsibility. It hits on the point where what I love about Christianity combines with what I love in Buddhism, Taoism, and other healing schools of thought.
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Today has been a peaceful one, and I've been reflecting on some of my most satisfying friendships. Despite all the crummy things in life there are to complain about, I realize that I've always had good friends. At each difficult turn in life, there has been at least one person who amazes me in his or her capacity to reach out and make a profound impact in my life.
These people are positive, insightful, and seek out the well-being of others. They have responsibility down to an art.
On a blog a few months ago, I read a teacher's description of students who have "generosity of spirit:"
She explained that there are often students in her classes who are not only smart and intellectually curious, but who also have a knack for stepping back and letting other students shine, who are willing to really listen to their classmates and respond to their ideas and concerns, and who approach their own work and fellow students with a certain kind of acceptance and understanding.
While I think this characteristic is great for the classroom, I think it's even greater for life. And these are some of my friends, who have let me and others shine. This post is for them, for you, for what you do. And for me, as I am learning from you.
