Thursday, October 30, 2003
 
and eight-head long zipper, from the top of the skull past tilted pelvis to the heel of the weight-bearing foot.

clikclikclikclikikikikikikik....

out flow insides liquid contours, smudging mirror-perceptions of self.


- posted by emily oi! @ 10:05 PM | | 0 rocks in pond



 
is there a song that moves with your life? a song that curves with the ebb and flow of you? a song that sees what you see and feels what you feel? the song your heart would sing if only it wasn't quite so tone deaf and could play the guitar? is there a sountrack to go with the darting eyes and tapping fingers of the person sitting next to you? are there notes paired perfectly with the swooping power lines alongside the freeway? is the fog descending on the city tuned in the key of b flat minor? does one song come to mind when you think of the first time you saw New York City at night? is there a mezzosoprano singing the lyrics to when you first drove your mom's car? is there an instrument that can play the sound when your heart breaks? is there a single note that can shatter your way of thinking? can the key of a sharp major open the door to your mind? are your many memories dotted with the musical undertones of your favorite thirty-three and a third? does one record have the power to dictate what you buy at the store? can vibrato echo your losses? can a sforzando parallel your gains? what part does music play in your life?


- posted by Allie @ 4:12 PM | | 0 rocks in pond



Wednesday, October 29, 2003
 
What Does It Mean?

    
                            Photo taken in the seasonal dome by my better half.


- posted by -g @ 7:27 AM | | 0 rocks in pond



Tuesday, October 28, 2003
 
My Home

          
                                                                                Photo taken by B. Hartinger

This photo was taken in the land where I grew up. The image reminded me of one particular summer spent in recovery from an especially exhausting year of college. It was filled with a good deal of biking and boating. On several occasions, I was invited to play tennis with my former High School English teacher. He owned a sheep ranch and ran boarder collies in competitions. At one point he was 85% self-sufficient. He always welcomed help on the ranch, so as we prepared to play tennis one Saturday afternoon, he suggested we wager something on the set. "If I win, you work the afternoon on my ranch. If you win, I'll take you sailing around the peninsula." It was a lovely day for sailing, and I am not sure if he threw the set because he wanted to sail or if I legitimately won it. I suppose I will never know for sure, and the way I tell it will depend on my self-image and pride at the time. It is a nice memory in any case.



- posted by -g @ 6:30 PM | | 0 rocks in pond



Monday, October 27, 2003
 
Do You Know Your Signature?

         

C.S. Lewis expounds admirabley:

Each Soul Has a Secret Signature.

There have been times when I think I do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering whether, in my heart of hearts, I have ever desired anything else. Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you were looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never HAD it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it - tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest - if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself - you would say 'Here at last is the thing I was made for.' We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our spouses or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows spouse or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.


- posted by -g @ 8:00 PM | | 0 rocks in pond



Saturday, October 25, 2003
 
Shadows Reflect Form

       

           Form reaching to form.
                  Seeing only shadows.
                         Shadow reflects form. Form reflects spirit?
       How is your spirit? What do you perceive?

              *bows love*


- posted by -g @ 1:13 PM | | 0 rocks in pond



Friday, October 24, 2003
 
Perhaps Allie can explain these:

One:
        

we got up one morning, hopped on the only metro line in toulouse (after lots of argument trying to find it. there were signs and they all pointed strange directions and were farily infrequent) and wandered through the city. there were lots of pedestrian streets and a huge square in the center of town where there was a huge market. after a while of walking we decided to try to find something to eat and stumble upon this cathedral, saint sulpice (now i have searched and searched and cannot for the life of me find out who st sulpice was or what he did). they have these cool paded doors so when you enter you don't disrupt mass. we went inside and saw this huge chapel. my father thought it looked unfinished but i had never seen anything so beautiful in my life. it was so simple and still had this aura of grandeur. there were huge pillars and tall simple leaded glass windows. the pews were old and wooden and the floor was white and tiled. there was this elaborate pulpit, one of those ones that has stairs to get to it and looks like a little balcony seat at an opera or something. the main altar area was an arched alcove that was all pretty and gilded and whatnot. there were these smaller chapels off to the sides with statues of the saints. we all lit candles. my mother put hers by her absolute favorite saint, st. anthony of padua. i put mine by notre dame de bons conseils.

for a while i sat in the pews and just thought. the church was so gorgeous. it was so white and perfect. it just seemed a place of purity. there i found such clear thought. the silent atmosphere was so inviting. the entire building seemed to be at peace with it's incompletion and anyone who entered couldn't help but be at peace with their incompletion.

um...i figured out why i couldn't find anything out about st sulpice. it isn't st sulpice, it's st sernin (coincidentally i can't find anything about him either). st sulpice is the church in paris that jean-baptiste-simeon chardin attended as a child. st sernin is also not a cathedral, it's a basilica.
(hehe, yeah)

-allie :)


(b):
        

Thirdly:
        


- posted by -g @ 9:06 PM | | 0 rocks in pond



Wednesday, October 22, 2003
 
Have You Seen Me? Do You Know Who I Am?

        


- posted by -g @ 2:54 PM | | 0 rocks in pond



Tuesday, October 21, 2003
 
I found this in the recovered archives...it seems appropriate to post it again. Some things are worth repeating.

"Every inclination of the heart is towards love, but many will never truly know the inclinations of the heart, for the heart can be masked so easily... the longest-enduring light in the world can be shut out easily, by closing a door or even the eyes. We were designed with tribute to our Designer in mind, and thus we were each endowed with a bit of our Designer, and Love is the force that designed us. We were given this Love in our core so that we might share it with others, and recognize it in ourselves and others that we might experience sanctity within ourselves before we ascend to a blessed Life outside of Time."

Thank you Eva.


- posted by -g @ 3:51 PM | | 0 rocks in pond



 
Say....

"Though I am not naturally honest, I am sometimes by chance." --William Shakespeare

"The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces." --Bob

"The best way to become boring is to say everything." --Voltaire


- posted by -g @ 3:30 PM | | 0 rocks in pond



Monday, October 20, 2003
 
The Little Sparrow, by Maxim Gorky

Sparrows are just like people. The grown-ups are dull as ditchwater and everything they say sounds as if it came out of a book, but the young have minds of their own.

Once upon a time there lived a baby sparrow and his name was Poodik. He lived on top of a bath-house window in a nice warm nest made of tow, bits of moss and other soft stuff. He had not yet tried to fly, but already he was flapping his little wings and poking his head out of the nest. He was very impatient to know what the outside world was like and whether it was good enough for him.

"Tweet, tweet --- what are you up to?" Mother Sparrow would ask and Poodik would shake his wings and, peeping down at the ground, would chirrup back: "It's ch-err-ibly dark down there! Ch-err-ibly dark!"

Then Father Sparrow would come home with insects for them to eat and start boasting: "I'm the chief! I'm the chief!"
And Mother Sparrow would chirp approvingly: "Yes, chief! Yes, chief!"
But Poodik just swallowed the insects and thought to himself: "They give you a leggy worm and talk as if it was fantastic!"

And he would keep poking his head out of the nest and peering around.
"Now, child! Now, child!" his mother chirped at him. "mind you don't fall out!"
"Don't be silly! Not I," Poodik chirped back.
"It'll be silly you, if there's a cat about! He'll gobble you up!" his father explained, flying off on another hunt.
And so the days went by. Yet Poodik's wings were in no hurry to grow.

One day a strong wind sprang up.
"Twee-ee-eet! Twee-ee-eet! What's this?" Poodik wanted to know.
"It's the wind," his mother told him. "And it could blow you out of the nest. Then-whoops! Down you go to the cat!"

Poodik did not like the sound of that so he said:
"Why are the trees swaying? Let them stop swaying, and the wind will go away."
His mother tried to explain how things worked, but he would not believe her. He had his own answer for everything.

A man walked past the bath-house, swinging his arms.
"The cat must have torn his wings off," Poodik tweeted. "Only the bones remain."
"That's a man. Men don't have wings!" his mother said.
"Why not?"
"That's how they are. All they can do is hop about on two legs, see?"
"But why?"
"Because if they had wings, they would chase us, just as Daddy and I chase insects."
"That's twash!" Poodik tweeted. "Twash and twaddle! Everyone ought to have wings. It can't be such fun on the ground as it is in the air! When I grow up, I'll see that everyone can fly."

So Poodik refused to trust his mother. He was too young to know that you can land in trouble if you don't trust your mother.
Boldly he perched on the very edge of the nest, chirping out a cheery song:

Wingless human beings all
Your legs are useless things!
You may be big, you may be tall
But you each insect bites and stings.
Now look at me, small as can be
I feed on insects, as you see.


He went on singing till he fell right out of the nest. Down went Mother Sparrow after him. But so did the cat --- a big ginger monster with green eyes.
Poodik was frightened out of his feathers. He spread is little wings and, trembling on his small grey legs, twittered timidly:
"Highly honoured to see you, I'm sure."
But his mother pushed him aside. And with her feathers ruffled up, she looked very brave and fierce, her open beak aimed straight at the cat's green eyes.
"Quick, Poodik!" she cried. "Up on the window! Fly!"
Fear lifed the little sparrow off the ground. He took one jump, flapped his wings once and then again, and there he was on the window ledge.

And after him came Mother. Though she had lost her tail she was overjoyed. She gave him a good peck on the back of the head, saying, "Well?"
"Well, what?" said Poodik. "You can't learn everything at once!"

Meanwhile the cat was sitting on the ground, picking Mother Sparrow's feathers off his paw, staring up at them and miaowing sadly:
"What a sweet little spar-r-riow! Just like a miaowse! Miaow!"

So it all came right in the end, that is, if we don't count the loss of Mummy's tail.


- posted by Allie @ 4:16 PM | | 0 rocks in pond



Saturday, October 18, 2003
 
nothing that is lost is ever really lost.

virginia woolf showed me tonight that death is part of the completion of life. in its death we can feel the shadow of its life.

nothing that is really lost is ever lost.

my mother always uses analogies to explain people and the world and everything to me. "there are basketballs, and there are watermelons, and there are peas." she says. i have always cared too much to be a pea, and thought too much to be a basketball. nudged and nudged to no avail, kinetic energy stored in my seeds until i am ripe with potential, a momentum unstoppable. it is all in me.

nothing that ever is, is lost. really.

at least, not when dan is around.

we weren't sure whether to tell you or not. we thought perhaps you had already grieved and gained closure. i hope we haven't upset an unspoken plan. lost like the way i lost the first test i ever got a D on. (it was fifth grade, and on history.) what i mean is, dan backed up.


- posted by emily oi! @ 11:58 PM | | 0 rocks in pond



 
Does this experience have the potential to stop ennui? What is the answer? Is it the development of an inner life? How is yours?


- posted by -g @ 5:05 PM | | 0 rocks in pond



 
Starting over....it is a constant in life.

       

This new beginning is dedicated to the memory of intelligent whales.

What are you suppose to do if you do not exist? How are you suppose to treat or interact with those who do not exist?

The 'Bird of Paradise' plant image (taken by me) represents the idea of a name that means much more than is seen. Peace dear ones. Help me rebuild please!


- posted by -g @ 10:58 AM | | 0 rocks in pond



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