“But there is one vocation–philosophy–which knows that all men, by what they think about and wish for, in effect wield all tools. It knows that men thus determine, by their manner of thinking and wishing, whether it is worthwhile to wield any.”
–Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, November
thoughts
Morning Trip (107)
“A Warning To My Readers
Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies. That I
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is.”
–Wendell Berry
Thoughts on Twinflames
http://soundcloud.com/kinky-5/negrodia
“Twinflames are our most perfect mirrors, because they are us in another body. Our twinflames are the only ones who give us a true and honest reflection of who we are, and where we are in our lives at any given time. When you look at each other, you will feel like you are looking in the mirror because of the magic of your soul being mirrored, you will just FEEL it!
Not only do they reflect everything in us that is good… they also mirror any fears or perceived “weaknesses” that we feel we have… and those are reflected so that both twins can work through them together.
Loving our twinflame sometimes feels as if we are loving “ourself”… because technically, we are. They truly are our other half.
Often confused with the term “soulmate”… twinflames are two halves of one soul. They are the person who completes you.
Twinflames love, respect and honour each other equally… and unconditionally.”
Morning Inventory
I woke this morning. There appear to be more things wishing to have my attentions, some of which–of course, I do not feel like obliging. However, things do seem to be progressing in what I term to be an orderly fashion. I think an orderly fashion means that I can manage without being overloaded. I’m making breakfast, trying oatmeal, chopped dates, coconut, and some pumpkin seeds.
I decided to use the quiet to take my inventory and my place. Today, this did not occur in a beating myself up manner! Actually, I clicked on my blogroll to one of my friend Kathy Drue’s blogs. She utilized this blog–Opening the Door and Walking Outside, as a one year commitment. Last year, at some point it became my ritual or habit to revisit the blog daily. I think that I stopped a bit soon this year. There are parts of one year and then another year, at such places I may have become confused about which I have visited and which that I had not. So, this morning I thought I’d go over and see which ones I may have missed. I might have to choose to do the entire year over again, just to be sure 😀
“I cannot seem to locate human satisfactory words to unlock what I think and what I feel and what comes to all of my senses when I walk the Earth. I wish I could locate a way to express it and to share it with others. I’d like to offer them the joy that I know and that seems so unfamiliar to them. The best over all word I can locate is being able to find enchantment. I have faith that I shall be able to share it or express it adequately when and if i need to do so with each person that comes along(ok so maybe I just say that or not–it seems to work out that way in the end). I would not be grounded nor sane with life on life’s terms had I not the implied challenge that I accepted to do this daily thing with you. I appreciate you beyond anything I could say with simple words.”–Elisa, Comment from The Honeymoon is Over, January 1, 2009.
The first thing, upon which I chose to reflect (ok fine it popped into my head unruly and unbidden) was, Wow! Look who I am when I am grounded and taking care of myself. Next part of me muttered about yeah and look at the mess now–you didn’t even feed the body a decent breakfast. I’m very glad for this thought because it got me the most excellent oatmeal! It also reminded me that back then I could do as I wished, and I wished to be careful of me. It made every day amazing, no matter life on life’s terms. Sometimes this making took effort and desire. I think that I have forgotten this, or have stopped responding to the nudge to partake. Part of me is wishing to berate. Another part is pointing out the Winter at The Tree Place Solstice Series and the magic that came to me from it, when I wasn’t looking, when I was only acting as if, going through the motions.
The last thing, which was the first gleaming spark of joy to my inner flame, if I look even closer past the reactions, was that I do have so much of me to express. When I do not do so, I am tired, I am ill, I am less than. I erode into the world, my batteries become corroded. I notice that I still do not have a way to express all that I wish in the ‘right’ words, or sounds, or images. Sometimes this is a color or a scent or a feeling. A label just doesn’t seem to fit or forces it to be a perception of others which isn’t precise, and then becomes not enough. I can feel unseen and unheard. Not honored.
I am the bell, ringing out across cold winter lands, echoing back, mirrored. There are two things that come to mind about this bell. It could be vain and proud and simply wish to sound to gain praise from others about the qualities it possesses. The other is a sort of acknowledgement of the ring being a bit of puzzle in existence, a part of the whole, not just walking alongside, invisible and observing not affecting. What happens if we each feel that invisible and stop contributing to the whole?
I just moved from tears to smiles in a few moments here. I was feeling sad and then I heard…the wind whispers on your face and it talks through the trees…it does this always, no matter your regard nor your thanks. 🙂
An Elder with an Empty Mind
“Of all the pitfalls in our paths and the tremendous delays and wanderings off the track I want to say that they are not what they seem to be. I want to say that all that seems like fantastic mistakes are not mistakes, all that seems like error is not error; and it all has to be done. That which seems like a false step is the next step.”
– Agnes Martin
Morning Trip (39)
“One of the most curious characteristics of human beings – particularly westerners – is that pain and inconvenience stimulate their vitality far more than pleasure. In a very precise sense of the word, human beings are spoilt. A spoilt child is one who has come to expect certain privileges and accepts them as rights. He is not grateful for these privileges; in fact, they bore him. The only time he feels strongly about them is when they are curtailed; then he sulks. All human beings take their happiness for granted, and only question life when they are in pain.”
– Colin Wilson
Beyond the Outsider
Morning Trip (19)
“As with events, so is it with thoughts. When I watch that flowing river, which, out of regions I see not, pours for a season its streams into me, I see that I am a pensioner; not a cause, but a surprised spectator of this ethereal water; that I desire and look up, and put myself in the attitude of reception, but from some alien energy the visions come.
Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus. From the mountain you see the mountain. We animate what we can, and we see only what we animate. Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them. It depends on the mood of the man, whether he shall see the sunset or the fine poem. There are always sunsets, and there is always genius; but only a few hours so serene that we can relish nature or criticism.
It is very unhappy, but too late to be helped, the discovery we have made, that we exist. That discovery is called the Fall of Man. Ever afterwards, we suspect our instruments. We have learned that we do not see directly, but mediately, and that we have no means of correcting these colored and distorting lenses which we are, or of computing the amount of their errors. Perhaps these subject-lenses have a creative power; perhaps there are no objects. Once we lived in what we saw; now, the rapaciousness of this new power, which threatens to absorb all things, engages us. Nature, art, persons, letters, religions, — objects, successively tumble in, and God is but one of its ideas. Nature and literature are subjective phenomena; every evil and every good thing is a shadow which we cast.
Thus inevitably does the universe wear our color, and every object fall successively into the subject itself. The subject exists, the subject enlarges; all things sooner or later fall into place. As I am, so I see; use what language we will, we can never say anything but what we are.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Morning Trip
“The Midnight Club
The gifted have told us for years
that they want to be loved
For what they are, that they,
in whatever fullness is theirs,
Are perishable in twilight,
just like us. So they work all night
in rooms that are cold and
webbed with the moon’s light;
Sometimes, during the day,
they lean on their cars,
And stare into the blistering
valley, glassy and golden,
But mainly they sit, hunched
in the dark, feet on the floor,
Hands on the table, shirts with a
bloodstain over the heart.”
– Mark Strand, The Continuous Life
Elisa's Spot 