Who do we ever see but ourselves?

We're all leaving...

2011-03-12T10:24:00.004Z

We're all leaving
even the ones who stay behind
We're all leaving in our own time

lyrics: Karine Polwart, photo: me

You are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music

2010-09-26T15:59:00.000+01:00

On Work
Kahlil Gibran

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons,
and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.

But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.

You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart,
even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection,
even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy,
even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead
are standing about you and watching.

Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet."
But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.

Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

No-one knows where the night is going...

2010-03-07T16:43:00.002Z

One by one, the guests arrive

The guests are coming through

The broken-hearted many

The open-hearted few

And those who dance, begin to dance

Those who weep begin

And "Welcome, welcome" cries a voice

"Let all my guests come in".

- Leonard Cohen, Let The Guests Come In

.

2010-02-14T18:30:00.001Z

Lord, how glad we are that we don't hold you,

but that you hold us.

- traditional prayer from Haiti

I miss 'that' place.

2009-12-19T13:35:00.001Z

Largeman: You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone.
Sam: I still feel at home in my house.
Largeman: You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.

No-one knows true, not even you.

2009-12-11T21:08:00.002Z

Boetti's embroidered Map of the World (part of a series embroidered by Afghan and Pakistani artisans). [click for larger image]

Oh where are you going and can I come with you?

2009-09-27T18:47:00.004+01:00

Oh where are you going

and can I come with you,

and what is your method

for keeping alive:

no pack or possessions,

no clothing or shelter,

no food to sustain you -

how can you survive?

- John Bell, in "Heaven Shall Not Wait" music book

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24537594@N04/3167293194/

The heart asks pleasure first...and then...

2009-08-07T21:16:00.004+01:00

I didn't know this was a poem. A very sad poem.

The heart asks pleasure first,

And then, excuse from pain;

And then, those little anodynes

That deaden suffering;

And then, to go to sleep;

And then, if it should be

The will of its Inquisitor,

The liberty to die.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) P.1890

me and you

2009-04-10T12:46:00.003+01:00

You can do better than me,
but I can't do better than you.

- Death Cab for Cutie

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bannini/208408901/

When Earth's last picture is painted...

2009-04-08T16:09:00.002+01:00

When Earth's last picture is painted
And the tubes are twisted and dried
When the oldest colors have faded
And the youngest critic has died
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it
Lie down for an aeon or two
'Till the Master of all good workmen
Shall put us to work anew

And those that were good shall be happy
They'll sit in a golden chair
They'll splash at a ten league canvas
With brushes of comet's hair
They'll find real saints to draw from
Magdalene, Peter, and Paul
They'll work for an age at a sitting
And never be tired at all.

And only the Master shall praise us.
And only the Master shall blame.
And no one will work for the money.
No one will work for the fame.
But each for the joy of the working,
And each, in his separate star,
Will draw the thing as he sees it.
For the God of things as they are!

- Rudyard Kipling

So I took to whisky so I could recall The taste of his mouth on my mouth, that’s all.

2009-01-14T16:14:00.002Z

Karine Polwart's The Sun's Coming Over The Hill.

I've been listening to this non stop for the past few weeks. She's my favourite singer, but I hadn't got this (her first solo) album, Faultlines. The lyric's for this song are just out of this world. I listen to them over and over and every time I just think it's about the saddest song ever.

Two different live versions of the song [the second just shows how great a live performer she is]:

Lyrics

Now we deal with those for whom life is but a carnal tomb, in which the darkness holds no power and neither does the final hour.

2008-12-29T11:28:00.004Z

poet Seamus Heaney:

History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave,

But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up

And hope and history rhyme,
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.

Believe that a farther shore

Is reachable from here.

maybe next year

2008-12-26T17:41:00.003Z

I've never known the story behind it before.

A Holy City discussion thought...

2008-11-03T15:51:00.001Z

lower standards and aspire to principals.

me and you

2008-09-11T23:59:00.002+01:00

I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.

- Roy Croft

My favourite church ever...

2008-09-03T15:08:00.004+01:00

The word of God.
The works of God.
What else do we need?
The people to praise God.
C'est ca.

faith vs. humanity vs. immortality

2008-07-16T19:08:00.002+01:00

'There is nothing more terrible than that you lose your faith.'
'Yes there is,' I said. 'You can lose your humanity. That is far more terrible.'
'Fine words, Gideon,' my father said, 'but they mean nothing. You go to America, and that is what they will tell you there. It won't help you when you have to confront your own immortality.'

- Passage from James Robertson's 'The Testament of Gideon Mack'

Happiness

2008-07-12T11:13:00.002+01:00

From Postsecret this week.

Poetry and History

2008-07-07T12:13:00.003+01:00

The poet and the historian differ not by writing in verse or in prose... The true difference is that one relates what has happened, the other what may happen. Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular.

- Aristotle in "Poetics"

[photo from flickr]

blank

2008-04-17T18:00:00.002+01:00

sad/happy - delete as appropriate

2008-04-16T16:05:00.002+01:00

No-one else can really know how sad or happy you are.

- Proverbs 14.10

be wary of...

2008-04-14T10:14:00.003+01:00

'People who claim they are evil are usually no worse than the rest of us.' He sighed. 'It's people who claim that they're good, or anyway better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.

-from Gregory McGuire's 'Wicked'

[photo taken by me somewhere in northern Scotland in 2003]

knowledge

2008-04-12T13:51:00.001+01:00

"To know everything is to forgive everything."

- Gautama

the function of man is to live

2008-04-10T11:29:00.005+01:00

"I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it be stifled by dry rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time."

-Jack London

there's no-one left to tell your troubles to

2008-04-08T16:15:00.003+01:00

Deb Talan: Comfort

[photo taken by me sometime last year in my bedroom]

this little space inbetween

2008-04-07T21:10:00.003+01:00

"I believe if there's any kind of God it wouldn't be in any of us, not you or me, but just this little space inbetween. If there's any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed, but who cares, really? The answer must be in the attempt."

-Before Sunrise

[photo taken by me in June 2007, in small cafe in Galway.]