“Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances.”

29 September 2008



Bright Idea #79: One Thing at a Time.
"The creative process takes place not under the burning rays of the sun, but in the cool, reflected light of the moon when the darkness of the unconscious is great: night, not day, is the time for begetting. Darkness and stillness, secrecy, remaining mute and veiled, are part of it... The nocturnal moistness of the moon-night is the time of sleep, but also that of healing and recovery." Warm and grey, a flannel afternoon smelling of mud and fermenting. trying to not be overwhelmed by the recent negativity, how easy it is for me to succumb to the cold pricklies. so today i decided to do one thing at a time. moved bergamot and comfrey, echinacea and elecampane in the lovely drizzle but i have no air and leaned up against the trampoline more than once, wheezing. fed the compost, laundry, kitchen duty, my castle wall of books (a mighty fortress is my library), walked L2 to the PO and saw how much the world had changed. swept, smudged, scoured, stirred, ate beans and buckwheat in front of democracy now!, made plans and watered plants. got my nifty retro obama pin from moveon and regardless i will go forward next spring with a garden tomorrow ill pull up the raggedy cosmos and the exhausted tomatoes every year i learn something better and deeper regardless of output in pounds. so little of my day spent at all idle and yet i worry i havent done enough to satisfy. my life on the defensive from those i should seek for sanctuary. life is for learning. grief settles in the lungs.


Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.
"And if the question were asked: What is more real, the mundane or the sublime? most would hesitate before they gave an answer. On the one side, details: say, the aftermath of a breakfast, dirty chipped plates in the sink, their rims encrusted with egg yolk. Against this, the unnameable: small aching heart with boasts, what can you know? Outside the cage of everything we ever heard or saw, beyond, outside, above, there lies the real, hiding as long as we shall live, there stretch and trail the millions of names of God burning across the eons. When all through this our end will come before we even know the names of us.

For many the egg yolk prevails." -L.M.

"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well." -V.V.G.

"The perfection of the Absolute where all Becoming stops and pure Being, immutable, timeless, unchanging, hangs forever like a ripe peach upon the bough." -E.A.

"...and the whole incident was incredibly frazzling and angst-rod and filled almost a whole mead notebook and is here recounted in only its barest psycho-skeletal outline." -D.F.W.

"At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards." -H.S.T.

"Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live." -D.T.
"Cometh a voice: My children, hear; From the crowded street and the close-packed mart I call you back with my message clear, back to my lap and my loving heart. Long have ye left me, journeying on by range and river and grassy plain, to the teeming towns where the rest have gone - come back, come back to my arms again. So shall ye lose the foolish needs that gnaw your souls; and my touch shall serve to heal the fretted nerve. Treading the turf that ye once loved well, instead of the stones of the city's street, ye shall hear nor din nor drunken yell, but the wind that croons in the ripening wheat. I that am old have seen long since ruin of palaces made with hands for the soldier-king and the priest and prince whose cities crumble in desert sands. But still the furrow in many a clime yields softly under the ploughman's feet; still there is seeding and harvest time, and the wind still croons in the ripening wheat. The works of man are but little worth; for a time they stand, for a space endure; but turn once more to your mother - Earth, my gifts are gracious, my works are sure. Instead of the strife and pain I give you peace, with its blessing sweet. Come back, come back to my arms again, for the wind still croons in the ripening wheat."
-John Sandes, The Earth-Mother (excerpt, 1918)