love reasons

Love's Paradox: Union of selves that remain individual
Love's Theorem: Sharing in the fruits of sharing
Love's Postulate: Focus of attention in the absence of self-interest
Love's Corollary: Seeing life through a second pair of eyes

comebacks

Everything returns to its origins. Our acts do, too.

creative finesse

Creativity does not collaborate; it lends itself what it borrows.

advancement

Those who question learn more than those who agree.
Those who agree get further than those who question.

the diary

[written at mystique cafe in a country far, far away on a lonely, gray day]

Gretchen and I were traveling through the Holland countryside on our way to Amsterdam when our rental car's heater hose ruptured. I hailed a passing car and had the good fortune the gentleman stopped and spoke enough English for us to communicate. He called from his mobile for help, and a half hour later we were towed to a village not far from the thoroughfare. With one call to the rental agency the village mechanic was authorized to repair the broken hose. Gretchen and I decided to explore the shops while we waited. She went to a craft shop, while I was drawn to the bookshop next door.

I entered to meet a young woman coming from the back room who could tell from my poorly spoken French greeting I was a Brit. 'You are British, monsieur?' 'I am.' Playfully, she replied, 'Then let us speak English.' After small chatter about the village and shop, she explained that I was the first 'Englishman' to be in the shop since 1915. Indifferent, I awkwardly thanked her for bringing it to my attention.

After brief silence, she continued, explaining that her family four generations earlier had been deeply affected by a young British officer badly wounded near the beginning of the war. From what she described, in spite of his severe wounds, he exhibited extraordinary character and had a quiescent, peaceful presence - an inner certainty and dignity that seemed to overtake any who came to his bedside.

My curiosity roused, I rattled off some questions. Smiling, she raised her right hand up slowly to me and said, 'Wait! I will show you our family's greatest treasure.' She left for the back room. Flushed with mild irritation, I thought, 'How I hate non sequiturs.'

She returned with an old untitled leather cover book with a dark stain on its lower spine and front cover. Running her hand slowly across the front of the book, she said, 'This was the Englishman's blood.' Placing the book in my hands, she said, 'Open.'

Opening the book, I saw what looked like a diary entry at the top of the page dated 21 August 1914. The young lady laughed gently with pleasure. I looked up and only saw bright eyes. 'You are a blessed man!' 'Why?' I asked. Leaning forward, she spoke softly, 'You have begun well, monsieur.' Then moving her hands as if shooing me away, she continued, 'Now read!' And so I did.

21 August 1914 Calcutta

Our final overture to sense and reason failed. Father's will has prevailed. Cogshall and I must return to England forthwith. Such a father and patron exasperates. Our studies end before begun. One more son from the family for another war? We leave tomorrow.

22 August 1914 Calcutta

Arrived at the railway station to a most singular event. One of our trunks was so heavy that two porters had difficulty removing it carefully from the cart. Impatient, the station master yelled at them with resounding ferocity. The usually reticent Dr Cogshall, annoyed by the ill mannered station master, sternly retorted in Hindi, 'Leave them be!' The station master stood astonished, then slowly turned his back and walked away. The two porters continued with conspicuous equanimity. When they finished, I asked Cogshall to ask them from whence they acquired such extraordinary dispositions. Cogshall spoke to them in Hindi. With subtle smiles, they both turned from Cogshall to me, peered into my eyes, and answered as if in song as one man. From his extraordinary memory and wit, Cogshall has given me this translation.

porter 1 ~ be still in movement
porter 2 ~ move in stillness
porter 1 ~ seeing all destinies
porter 2 ~ be not in nor out
porter 1 ~ be here and there now
porter 2 ~ there is rest in movement
porter 1 ~ when you are still
porter 2 ~ this stillness is clarity
porter 1 ~ murmuring shadows
porter 2 ~ banished from self
porter 1 ~ is translucence
porter 2 ~ stillness - no commotion
porter 1 ~ silence - no dissent
porter 2 ~ then perception clear
porter 1 ~ then thought timeless
porter 2 ~ then action grace
porter 1 ~ then speech true
porter 2 ~ this is called
porter 1 ~ life without a shell
porter 2 ~ this is called
porter 1 ~ indefectible peace
porter 2 ~ this is called
porter 1 ~ extensible existence
porter 2 ~ this is called
porter 1 ~ the atom of being
porter 2 ~ this is called
porter 1 ~ the power of power
porter 2 ~ we call it
porter 1 ~ living
porter 1 & 2 ~ in the origination of existence

I am captivated. Ready to pay the cost for Father's certain anger, I have decided to delay our travels, to meet with these two men tomorrow. I must learn what they know.

23 August 1914 Calcutta
. . . . .

light moving

Light casts lights,
overtakes the edge of objects,
moves without sound around corners,
to illumine what has seen it from the dark.

feathered bed or feathered faces

Feathers are just like opinions ~ better to sleep on them than to toss them into the face of others.

technorati

After spending the summer learning [and going bonkers with] coding into the wee hours of the night, writing, testing, and rewriting code, scrapping, one after the other, page designs, I have finally restored and renovated this blog [credit Aridewa], and ended this achievement with 'claiming' [?!] my blog at technorati. What an achievement. A little like graduating university. Study, persistence, a ceremony, a celebration capped later with friends and a few stout ales. But not this time. I will kiss and embrace sleep.

an angel

An angel requires no property to be defined, no property to be noticed, pursues no acquisitions, nor profits, lends not at a rate, nor borrows at one. Truth and love are his only possessions, not held in his hands but in his acts.

bureaucrat

Bureaucrat: without understanding, nor a wit of thought, one who is satisfied when a fact matches a rule.

thoughts like gifts

There are times we must leave our thoughts like gifts at the feet of those we care about and without ceremony walk quietly away. Rarely ignored, the manner of our behaviour will make recipients of these gifts.

master mystery solved

A master is a student at the root of his being.

complicity

Evil's reward is no retribution.

the straight line curves

We see a rule as a straight line until we turn it on its side and discover that it curves.

space life

We live in the space of our souls.

tale of a sweet talking frog

[my rendering of an old tale]

Long, long ago, deep in a forest a league or more from the earls's great castle was a little humble rustic village. And in this little humble rustic village lived a quaint little old man with a particular habit.

Every morning, if the weather be fair mind you, the old man with staff in hand went down a well trodden path that meandered through the forest whilst listening to the chirpping of birds and watching shafts of sunlight glowing through limbs and leaves.

On one particular morning walk, or better said a shuffle, the old man heard a voice that said so sweetly, 'If you kiss me I will turn into a beautiful young maiden and be your's forever.'

The old man, startled, stopped, pulled the back of his pants up with one hand, and looked about to find from whence this sweet voice spoke. With no success, the old man continued, staff firmly in hand, when again he heard, 'If you kiss me I will turn into a beautiful young maiden and be your's forever.'

Again the old man stopped, scratched the top of his head, and looked around. Glancing to the ground whilst now rubbing his chin he saw a large green frog with large green eyes batting its long green eyelashes, that said, 'Sir', with emphasis, 'if you kiss me I will turn into a beautiful young maiden and be your's forever.'

The old man, first startled, now excited, without a reply picked up the large green frog, put it in his pouch, and rushed back to the village as quickly as his old feet could shuffle.

Whilst shuffling from the forest to the small open field that led to the village green, the old man saw two of his dearest friends sitting on an old log by the edge of the green. He approached them with a hearty greeting and told them his story of the talking frog. Mute, they stared at him in disbelief, turned to each other nearly nose to nose, then suddenly burst out laughing so uncontrollably that they both nearly fell off the log.

With a slight squint of the eye and nod of the head, the old man spoke, 'I tell the truth and so will prove!', and forthwith, like sleight of hand, pulled the large green frog out from his pouch. There it was, in his hand, batting its long green eyelashes, saying with mild but noticeable impatience, 'Sir, if you kiss me I will turn into a beautiful young maiden and be your's forever.'

Starring at the large green frog with large green eyes batting its eyelashes, the old man's friends rose to his side and nudged him with their elbows shouting, 'Well aren't you going to kiss the frog? Kiss the frog! Aren't you going to kiss the frog?'

The old man looked up at his two dear friends and replied, 'Are you daft? At my age? I would rather a talking frog.'

known by a game

One doesn't realize clearly how responsible they are for their own destiny - circumstances encountered, made, altered, or altered by - until they play a game.

"abgescheidenheit"

Be as the snow
no rest in rest

Be as the rain
no movement in movement

Glide like the eagle
no feelings in feeling

Dive like the hawk
no thoughts in thought

Be as a bowl empty
it waits without waiting

Be as a cup full
it gives without giving

unhinged

A man without a woman is a gate without a fence.

a glowing difference

These people of brass ~ they forever need polishing, always by others. So don't be taken by a glowing similarity. Keep with people of gold.

roots to conceit

There once was a tree regarded by the other trees in the forest to be mighty in stature and magnificent in form. With each new spring, he appreciatively mused over the adoration he received, and in time this turned into such a deep rooted conceit that it superseded interest in the very roots that bore him. "Why, what started me has no resemblance to what I have become", thought the tree. His thought and attention were so focused on his grand foliage and great sprawling limbs that he grew farther from what he was. As time passed, he lost his remembrance of what made him, and slowly lost what he really was. He had become his praise.