Lou Doillon for Vanessa Bruno

“Yon fluttering little spirit that has been fixed into thy heart, from it the jealousy do I remove, as air from a water-skin.”
~Atharva Veda

JD Salinger (1919 ~ 2010)

"No one else has access to the world you carry around within yourself;
you are its custodian and entrance.
No one else can see the world the way you see it.
No one else can feel your life the way you feel it.
Thus it is impossible to ever compare two people
because each stands on such different ground."

"I have learned to be happy where I am.
I have learned that locked within the moments of each day
are all the joys, the peace,
the fibers of the cloth we call life.
The meaning is in the moment.
There is no other way to find it.
You feel what you allow yourself to feel,
each and every moment of the day."

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
~Pablo Neruda

"An enchanted life has many moments when the heart is overwhelmed with beauty and the imagination is electrified by some haunting quality in the world or by a spirit or voice speaking from deep within a thing, a place, or a person. Enchantment may be a state of rapture and ecstasy in which the soul comes to the foreground, and the literal concerns of survival and daily preoccupation at least momentarily fade into the background."
- Thomas Moore

"We don't understand that life is heaven, for we have only to understand that and it will at once be fulfilled in all its beauty, we shall embrace each other and weep."
- Fyodor Dostoevsky


words: whiskey river
img: siwei liu

When sorrow lays us low
for a second we are saved
by humble windfalls
of the mindfulness or memory:
the taste of a fruit, the taste of water,
that face given back to us by a dream,
the first jasmine of November,
a book we thought was lost,
the slight key that opens a house to us,
the smell of a library, or of sandalwood,
the date we were looking for,
the twelve dark bell-strokes, tolling as we count,
a sudden physical pain.

Eight million Shinto deities
travel secretly throughout the earth.
Those modest gods touch us -
touch us and move on.
- Jorge Luis Borges

The hours I spend with you

The hours I spend with you...
I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden,
a dim twilight,
and a fountain singing to it.
You and you alone make me feel that I am alive.
Other men it is said have seen angels,
but I have seen thee and thou art enough.
~George Moore

“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”
- Pablo Neruda

Shame

Had the chance to see the Avett Brothers last night at Terminal 5 here in Nyc. The four piece had the entire crowd in the palm of their hands for the hour and a half set. Definitely worth seeing if they come through your town.


A little sampling of their work...

Okay so I was wrong about
My reasons for us fallin’ out
Of love I want to fall back in

My life is different now I swear
I know now what it means to care
About somebody other than myself

I know the things I said to you
They were untender and untrue
I’d like to see those things undo

So if you could find it in your heart
To give a man a second start
I promise things won’t end the same

Let's run away...from all of it.

Just you & me.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
-Leonard Cohen



img: neil krug

You can close your eyes

Goodnight sweet girl.

Screening

I've watched "Paris Je T'aime" a number of times, and to me, the Place des Victoires segment (above) still stands out as the most touching piece in the film. Even if you don't understand the dialouge...just watch. The emotion still translates no matter what language you speak.

"Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point."

Sometimes we need to take a step back,
away from ourselves.
See the beauty in the world that surrounds us,
accepting that nothing is permanent.
Everything is in a constant state of change.

That cloud in the sky will not be there forever,
and when it goes you will miss it.

Take hold in the life we are given,
breathing in deep the air we are provided.
The only reality that exists is in the now,
the past only exists in the now,
and can leave whenever you wish it gone.
Find the the child spirit within and realize..

Everything will be okay in the end,
if it isn't,
it's not the end.
-S. Michael Sullivan

What matters is that you allow your heart - not your ego - to rule your life. Then very little matters because you will be a humble person and you'll take most of life as it comes.

If it rains, you get wet;
if they don't show up on time, you wait;
if they don't pay you, you eat less;
if they don't love you, so what, you didn't come to please them anyway;
if they don't think you're special, that's marvelous, it frees you from having to thank them for their compliments.

If life doesn't go the way you want, accept the way it does go, use it as your teacher.
- Stuart Wilde

E. Smith

If I could make you satisfied in everything you do
All your secret wishes could right now be coming true
And be forever with my poison arms around you.

Shadows

David Lynch, a surprising Au Revoir Simone fan, premiered their new video on his website. Worth a look - DLFTV

"Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves."
- Milan Kundera

img from: Them Thangs

We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust

Last week, the largest dust storm in 70 years, swept over Sydney Australia. The sky temporarily dyed a deep red from the airborne topsoil. The Big Picture has a nice collection of pictures.

You will never be alone,
you hear so deep a sound when autumn comes.
Yellow pulls across the hills and thrums,
or in the silence after lightning before it says its names -
and then the clouds' wide-mouthed apologies.

You were aimed from birth:
you will never be alone.

Rain will come,
a gutter filled,
an Amazon,
long aisles -
you never heard so deep a sound,
moss on rock,
and years.
You turn your head -
that's what the silence meant:
you're not alone.
The whole wide world pours down.
- William Stafford

The thing is...

The thing is to love life,
to love it even when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you,
it's tropical heat thickening the air,
heavy as water more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it,
an obesity of grief,
you think,
how can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face between your palms,
a plain face,
no charming smile,
no violet eyes,
and you say,
yes, I will take you
I will love you,
again.

-Ellen Bass


words: whiskey river
img src: flickr

Unmap

Justin Vernon of Bon Iver fame has collaborated with fellow Wisconsin residents Collections of Colonies of Bees. The result is Volcano Choir. Worth a listen...or four.