Of all the girls I've known and I've known some. Until I first met you I was lonesome. And when you came in sight, dear my heart grew light. And this ol' world seemed new to me. You're really swell, I have to admit you. These are the expressions that really fit you. And so I've racked my brain, hoping to explain all the things that you do to me. Bei mir bist du schoen - Ella Fitzgerald
I have always conceived of the novel as a crossroad between the individual and the collective destinies of men and women…in fiction truth is the search for truth, nothing is pre-established, and knowledge is only what both reader and writer can imagine. There is no other way to freely and fruitfully explore the possibilities of our unfinished humanity. No other way to refuse the death of the past, making it present through memory. No other way of effectively giving life to the future, through the manifestation of our desire. Carlos Fuentes
Nature is what we see - The Hill - the Afternoon -Squirrel - Eclipse - the Bumble bee - Nay - Nature is Heaven - Nature is what we hear - The Bobolink - the Sea - Thunder - the Cricket - Nay - Nature is Harmony - Nature is what we know - Yet have no art to say - So impotent Our Wisdom is To her Simplicity. Emily Dickinson
I was raised up believing, I was somehow unique, like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes unique in each way you can see. And now after some thinking I'd say I'd rather be a functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me.
But I don't, I don't know what that will be. I'll get back to you someday soon you will see.
What's my name? what's my station? Oh just tell me what I should do? I don't need to be kind to the armies of night that would do such injustice to you. Or bow down and be grateful and say "Sure take all that you see" to the men who move only in dimly-lit halls and determine my future for me
And I don't, I don't know who to believe. I'll get back to you someday soon you will see.
If I know only one thing, it's that every thing that I see of the world outside is so inconceivable often I barely can speak. Yeah I'm tongue tied and dizzy and I can't keep it to myself. What good is it to sing helplessness blues? Why should I wait for anyone else?
And I know, I know you will keep me on the shelf. I'll come back to you someday soon myself. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
Wheels of Life - a User's Guide to the Chakra System - Anodea Judith
Shirin Neshat's film Women without Men explores the social, political, and psychological dimensions of five women in Iran as they meet in a metaphorical garden, where they can exist and reflect while the complex intellectual and religious forces shaping their world linger in the air around them. These stories allows us to see the larger picture and realize that the human community resembles different organs of one body, created from a common essence. زنان بدون مردان
Round, like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel. Never ending or beginning, on an ever spinning wheel. Like a snowball down a mountain or a carnaval balloon. Like a carousell that's tuning running rings around the moon. Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes on it's face. And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space. Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind. Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of it's own. Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone. Like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream. Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream. Jose Feliciano
Sarajevo Roses: A meditation on how the near dismantling of civilization as we know it can happen in a brief span of time. It also explores the concept of memory, both personal and collective, and how distorted history and memory can be passed down through generations.
Gabriel Marcel's on creative fidelity and hope: The discussion of “creative fidelity” is an excellent place to find a unification of the various themes and ideas in Gabriel Marcel's thought. Ontological exigence (the need for transcendence), being, mystery, second reflection, and disponibilite(availability) all inform the discussion of creative fidelity and how we can experience these mysterious realities in more or less concrete terms.
The problem posed by fidelity is that of constancy. However, fidelity—a belief in someone—requires presence in addition to constancy over time, and presence implies an affective element. Mere constancy over time is not enough because a fulfillment of on obligation contre-coeur is devoid of love and cannot be identified with fidelity. Thus, the question is posed as follows. How are we able to remain disponible over time? Perhaps the best way to address this complex idea is to address its constituent parts: the problem posed by fidelity and the answer given by creativity.
The extension of credit to another is a commitment, an act whereby I commit myself and place myself at the disposal of the other. In extending credit to the other I am also placing my trust in her, implicitly hoping that she proves worthy of the credit I extend to her. However, we sometimes misjudge others in thinking too highly of them and at other times misjudge by underestimation.
Creative fidelity consists in actively maintaining ourselves in a state of openness and permeability, in willing ourselves to remain open to the other and open to the influx of the presence of the other. The truest fidelity is creative, that is, a fidelity that creates the self in order to meet the demands of fidelity.
Thus, creative fidelity invariably touches upon hope. The only way in which an unbounded commitment on the part of the subject is conceivable is if it draws strength from something more than itself, from an appeal to something greater, something transcendent—and this appeal is hope. Can hope provide us with a foundation that allows humans—who are radically contingent, frequently fickle, and generally weak—to make a commitment that is unconditional?
Hope is the final guarantor of fidelity; it is that which allows me not to despair, that which gives me the strength to continue to create myself in availability to the other. This does not mean, however, that hope is inert or passive. Hope consists in asserting that there is at the heart of being, beyond all data, beyond all inventories and all calculations, a mysterious principle which is in connivance with me.
Manhood, The Voyage of Life, by Thomas Cole: Now Man has entered a wilderness, with a stormswept yellow sky in the distance to remind him of his inevitable timetable. The tiller of the boat is lost, and the voyager can no longer control his destiny. For the first time, he doubts his own ability to cope with life, and he beseeches heaven imploringly. Still, however, Man greedily guards the worldly property he has amassed, half concealed in the boat, though a great urn has slipped free to suggest that in the end everything tangible is lost. His Guardian Spirit, still invisible to the traveler, watches calmly from the clouds, not forgetful, but with an air of solicitude.
Tibetan incantations - Om Mani Padme Hum - The Jewel in the Lotus (The Jewel refers to the Mind or consciousness and the Lotus refers to the Heart that is the source of Love energy, wishing for the cessation of the suffering of all sentient beings.)
Ra Ma Da Sa Sa Say So Hung Meditation (RA - the fire principle - symbolizes the Sun. MA - the water principle - is the energy of the Moon. DA - the Earth principle - provides the ground of action. SA - the air principle - is the impersonal infinity. After SA comes SAY, which is the totality of experience. SO is the personal sense of identity. HUNG is the infinite, vibrating and real. Hung suggests Hu, which is the life of God in every thing and every being. The ng causes the sound in Hung to stimulate the divine glands. The sound of the breath is So Hung. The two qualities of So Hung together mean "I am Thou".
خبرت هست که بی روی تو آرامم نیست طاقت بار فراق این همه ایامم نیست خالی از ذکر تو عضوی چه حکایت باشد سر مویی به غلط در همه اندامم نیست میل آن دانه خالم نظری بیش نبود ...چون بدیدم ره بیرون شدن از دامم نیست شب بر آنم که مگر روز نخواهد بودن بامدادت که نبینم طمع شامم نیست چشم از آن روز که برکردم و رویت دیدم به همین دیده سر دیدن اقوامم نیست "نازنینا مکن آن جور که کافر نکند" ور جهودی بکنم بهره در اسلامم نیست گو همه شهر به جنگم به درآیند و خلاف من که در خلوت خاصم خبر از عامم نیست نه به زرق آمدهام تا به ملامت بروم بندگی لازم اگر عزت و اکرامم نیست به خدا و به سراپای تو کز دوستیت خبر از دشمن و اندیشه ز دشنامم نیست دوستت دارم اگر لطف کنی ور نکنی به دو چشم تو که چشم از تو به انعامم نیست "سعدیا" نامتناسب حیوانی باشد هر که گوید که دلم هست و دلارامم نیست
The Milky Way is our own galaxy, a thick spinning disc of stars with arms that thin as they spiral outward. Milky Way Time Lapse
Agnes Varda - The Gleaners and I, a documentary about things we leave behind or throw away, the leftover, cleaning, what is left, what means picking, selecting, chosing and giving.
The Way is without beginning or end. However, things have their life and death, and you cannot rely upon them for fulfillment. One moment empty, the next moment full - you cannot depend upon their form. The years cannot be held off; time cannot be stopped. Decay, growth, fullness, and emptiness end and then begin again. It is thus that we must describe the plan of the Great Meaning and discuss the principles of the ten thousand things. The life of things is a gallop, a headlong dash ‑ with every movement they alter, with every moment they shift. The Teachings of Chuang Tzu
Chang Tzu tells us of a persevering man who after three laborious years mastered the art of dragon-slaying. For the rest of his days, he had not a single opportunity to test his skills. Jorge Luis Borges from The Book of Imaginary Beings: To be read "as with all...miscellanies, not...straight through... Rather we would like the reader to dip into the pages at random, just as one plays with the shifting patterns of a kaleidoscope". "legends of men taking the shapes of animals". Beware! Who knows what this Imaginary Being will say next?
At my age, what can I do but plagiarize what I've already said, no? As a very young man you don't know who you are. Then you're looking for yourself, while at my age one is only too keenly aware of one's limitations. For example, I know the kind of story I can write and the kind of story I may not attempt. I'm chiefly thinking in terms of the future, and this means I'm not really an old man. I'm looking forward not to stories I've written. After all, let them go their way. I'm rather thinking of what I'm about to write. This world is so strange that anything may happen, or may not happen. Being an agnostic makes me live in a larger, a more fantastic kind of world, almost uncanny. It makes me more tolerant. Sometimes I think, 'Why on earth should I die, since I have never done it? Why should I start a new habit at my age?'
The nature of Dominique Strauss-Kahn as well as the institution that he represents.
The world is not worthy of words, they have been suffocated from the inside as they suffocated you, as they tore apart your lungs ...the pain does not leave me, all that remains is a world through the silence of the righteous, only through your silence and my silence, Juanelo. “My pain gave a face to the pain of other families. I think a country is like a house, and the destruction of someone is the destruction of our families.” Mexican poet Javier Sicilia
Bella ciao - LES CHANTS DES PARTISANS - Gomez Naharro One morning I awakened, Oh Goodbye beautiful, Bye! Bye! And I found the invader all around. Oh partisan carry me away, because I feel death approaching. And if I die as a partisan, then you must bury me bury me up in the mountain. And the people who shall pass Will say "what a beautiful flower" who died for freedom.
In "The Wars" Timothy Findley sees no real distinction between what spurs us to family or international wars. He "sees the war as the focus for the same impulses enacted on the personal level in relationships and within the self." War causes an inversion of social mores of propriety and dignity. What used to be frowned upon is now encouraged, what used to be considered wrong is now considered right, and what used to be labeled insane is now viewed as normal.
Before his wife passed away she was able to constrain her children from revealing their emotions and obliged them to communicate through established forms of courtesy, family gathering, and so on— enabling them to erect false fronts to hide their true feelings. Whatever emotions might be bubbling beneath, everyone seemed timid, decorous, polite. But her passing changed this familiar world of decorum and order. There was a dramatic change in both his and the community in which he lived following the will contest that overturned the past and destroyed the moral foundations of his life. "What had happened here in so short a time that he could not recall her absence?... Where, in this dark, was the world he'd known and where was he being taken to so fast there wasn't even time to stop?" It was extremely disconcerting and he became very disoriented when they invaded his homes under the false premise of taking an inventory. To experience this intrusive invasion of his dignity, his privacy, and his personal belongings,"I felt as if I'd left my face behind in a mirror and the Webley in a stranger's hand". He felt naked and helpless, "Hands and fingers probed and poked at every part of..." This act represented the ultimate invasion of his dignity and privacy: "the war raped him, invading the intensely private frontier of the human body." This was a violation of his spirit as much as, if not more than, his homes and personal belongings.
In "The Wars", Findley open our eyes to the evil, the capacity for inflicting—and enduring—pain, that we try to hide from each other and ourselves.The narrator strives to learn the truth, but can never really do so, because too many people, like want to forget, or hide, who they were and what they did. The narrator recognizes that he can never really see the whole picture; he must rely on available fragments that only partially reveal the truth.
I believe my life is ending I don't know where to begin. I've got a page in my back pocket of the seven deadly sins and its dragging me around among the needles and the pins, and I dont need to take a breather, I'm on the outside looking out yeah, I don't n need to see your papers cuz I know what you're about. you had me by the bible and you had me by the belt and you had me from the instant my cold love began to melt and then you praise me for my inspiration asked me for an explanation followed up with hesitation fit my primal expectation. I don't care but I don't mind you can call me any time you can holler through the fortress and kick me out of line. I don't expect it from the grief that gathers in my head I like suspended disbelief I like to spend the day in bed I like to spend the nights in heaven hanging with the dead you know, Judas and his women and the voices in my head. I've got my eyes upon the mirror I've got my hands up in the air I confess to my distress yeah, I great crazier each year you know I'd change it if I could you know I like to say that I would but there's a war between the parts of me the evil and the good and you try and stop me i'm on fire it doesn't look that way you know, I used to be a liar but living's set me straight I don't come with no disclaimer I'm like everybody else, we keep our demons on the burner and our morals on the shelf and nobody asks for my opinion because you dont want to hear. I swear I'm only human wishing I could disappear and you must think its an illusion that I like to live in fear of a probable solution of why the devil put me here and now no judgement call will kill me just makes me close my eyes and I sink into the slumber to the prison of my mind where I'd love to introduce you if you found a way inside you could sell me retribution and totally demystify until i wonder how I got here until I don't know who to be is it better to be grounded? is it better to be free? am I better off without you? am I happier alone? Amelia Curran - The Mistress
the Amazigh "Berbers" are the first peoples of Africa
Origins: The story of the emergence of humans and humanity in Africa. The Berbers lived in north Africa long before the arrival of the Arabs, and their culture probably dates back more than 4,000 years. Berber states known as Mauritania and Numidia existed in classical times. Between the 11th and 13th centuries, two great Berber dynasties – the Almoravids and the Almohads – controlled large parts of Spain, as well as north-west Africa. Today, there are substantial Berber populations in Morocco and Algeria, plus smaller numbers in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.
