....birthday.....

I stIll mIss u (5/8/2013)

Oh Dusty I still so very much miss you........like a hole in my chest (5/8/2015)

Dusty....

Solitude - Χρονια τρελλα χρονια θλιμμενα

Solitude

MORPHEUS: For the hundredth time since I regained it, I reach into the pouch and I touch the sand. I shift it through my fingers. Feel each grain of it, inexhaustible. Endless. Like myself, like the few others of my kind. Endless. Tonight I feel alone. I have always been solitary, but here on the nightward shores of dream, loneliness washes over me in waves, lapping and pulling at my spirit. I sprinkle sand into the waters of night. The grains burn as they fall, reminding me of another in times long passed away. I watched him even then as he fell, his face undefeated, his eyes still proud. It is time for me to walk the abyss. Time to reclaim my own. I must talk to the Morningstar.

In Avalon......

When the artist was asked why he spent so many (18) years of his life, even the day before his passing, working on this one painting he replied 'Why should I hurry? I am in Avalon'...............why hurry indeed?

'The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon'

by Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Pre-Raphelite artist, painter, stained-glass painter (and many other crafts)

owned by the Ponce Museum of Art in Puerto Rico
on loan to the Tate Gallery in London for the first time exhibited in the UK in 2009
currently sublet to the Prado Museum in Madrid

A letter...

Dear Mr.Keats,

please allow me to make my apologies for addressing you directly in such a manner, not fitting perhaps a lady towards a gentleman as yourself. However, my reasons are of the purest of nature and aim to nothing but the statement of their verbal companions.

There is nothing as morally debilitating as the belief in the superiority of the past. So it is not your times that I address but yourself and yourself alone, through my times and the eyes that behold them. For your era has been called the most cynical of all the era's of this world, but allow me to differ in opinion. History can only judge but I dare say if your era was the most cynical what, then, can be said of mine? And on to the purpose of my letter.....

You see, dear Mr.Keats, I am in debt to you. A debt I can never hope to make good upon. For it was you who opened my eyes, my soul, my essence even, to what I have now come to recall as Beauty. And not only that, superior of virtues, but also to literally everything, all things consisting this world, in matters of verbal recollection. I was of a very tender age when I came across your Endymion, a work not welcomed as it should be, I know, but a perfect, in its essence and simplicity, ode to Beauty. 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever'. I have with me a first edition of your selected works and letters, one handed down to me through a family of generations, which I hold dearer to any other material thing. Its cover is wasted, its pages tired, but the writtings remain intact. So is the nature of all great things I imagine.

I have been privileged in having an education and a free access to all and any literally works of yourself as well as many others from all four corners of the world. I have also been privileged in traveling, visiting many of the sites where you spent your days and nights as well as the place of your departure. And what the modern world has made of these places, Mr.Keats. Where is Rome, Carthage, Bagdad, Brittagnia, Athens?

It matters not, for I shall always see Rome and indeed the rest of the world through the prism of your words. The isolation of each of our spirits is a characteristic of the human condition, but your ability to live out your experiences and your dreams even in words, your gift of recording them to poetry for the rest of us to see, has been a benefit for which I shall never be able to fully convey my gratitude.

Dear Mr.Keats, so many have used your words and your images again and again, willingly or not, in their attempts at poetry or any other mental image making craft. Your 'Autumn', your 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness', your Melancholy who '...dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die;', your Bright Star, your Endymion ,finally, have rested with me for as long as the short years of my life have passed, to be called upon in all the dark or happy hours of these mentioned years, to be understood and finally lived and seen through my eyes.

I feel more and more , every day, as my imagination strengthens, that I do not live in this world alone but in a thousand worlds. No sooner am I alone than shapes of epic greatness are stationed around me, and serve my Spirit the office which is equivalent to a King's body guard. - Your words Mr.Keats and allow me to borrow them, just this once, to honor and celebrate the joy and grandeur of the Spirit, your Spirit and , if I may, maybe, in a small part, my own as well.

'I am as happy as a Man can be....with the yearning Passion I have for the beautiful, connected and made one with the ambition of my intellect.'

You say 'If I should die I have left no immortal work behind me- nothing to make my friends proud of my memory -but I have lov'd the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had time I would have made myself remember'd'. I agonize over what more you would have left behind you if what we already have grant you the title of the greatest romantic poet, one that you never even dared to imagine I am sure.

Dear Mr.Keats, it is in moments of extreme joy or pain that your works find an adjacent place in my soul. And it is in part what makes them bearable, these moments.

I am all and only human. And aware of my limitations as well as the unbearable burden of my human nature. I am grateful that, in times such as these, your words console my soul, whose solidarity is profound and unbreakable, to my own sorrow.

In this hour of late, in the quietness that surrounds me, that always surrounds me no matter the astounding noises of the world, in this hour of sadness of having to leave behind memories not lived out in words but lived nonetheless, let me utter once again, in more humility I can convey through my untrained words, my gratitude for the joy and hope and companionship that your work has provided me.

I remain, hopefully for as long as my Spirit dwells here, always in your debt.

An unwise fool am I.........but with pure motives.


...................................................................................

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills

That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms

We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

.......................................................................


All selections and quotations from :

'Selected Letters and Poems of John Keats, edited with an Introduction and Notes by J.H.Walsh', Chatto and Windus, London 1954

Paintings by John William Waterhouse (1849-1917), English Pre-Raphaelite painter.

1 - Ophelia (by the pond), 1894, oil on canvas, housed currently in a private collection
2 - Miranda - The Tempest, 1916, oil on canvas, housed currently in a private collection

InBetween Days*

What a year......let me rephrase.....WHAT A YEAR!!!!

It matters not how straight the gate etc etc my head is bloody but unbowed etc etc I'm the master of my fate I'm the captain of my soul. Right.

It is probably useless to try even summarise this past year, useless and unnececerily painful.

So what I can now honestly say is that the last seconds of this year did go with a bang...one I did not anticipate nor expect and I got to face some of my daemons and they were really......kind with me at that confrontation.

To all who have been there in this past year thank you. To all who have not.......I kind of expected it so no worries ( I use that a lot these days)

As Queen Elizabeth of the Tudors said in her Tilbury speech before the battle with the Spanish Armada which changed the course of european history (yes I still do love the Tudors)

'I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm;'

I could say the same just replace the world England with Self and Parma and Spain with anything that puts one's self in jeopardy and borders of my realm...borders of my consciousness.

Self.....my self....my conscioussness.....my self awareness......which has been put on the line far too many times to count or mention in the last year.....I reclaim it this year.

I want to live. I want to live without fear. So I am prepared to fight, and again as Elizabeth said, to put down in the dust my honour and my blood even. Well not quite so tragically as in battle maybe but in this battle we call life casualties are often less then obvious but casualties nonetheless.

Solitude. I grow and with me my solitude grows, as a steady companion and comforting surrounding. I thought I understood Rilke years ago but every year that passes his Letters
seem to make more and more sense. Everyday I see people afraid of loneliness getting into situations destined to destroy their own individuality.......I say do not be afraid of your loneliness , embrace it and find your solitude and someday you ll be able (probably if you re lucky) to find someone to stand beside you, guarding each other's solitude. But that's maybe asking too much.

They didn't call them the Dark Ages because it was dark. How right you were Daniel.....

So to sum up a post that really doesn't make much sense.......to the year that passed.......I have only one word form Puccini's Nessun Dorma :

'Vincerò!'

I got to cry again at La Traviata and that was far more than I expected.

And I got to feel things I thought were lost to me so a big salute to Life for her unbelievable and unmistakable ways.......one wink to the Universe just for being (or not being who knows anyway):)

And for the New Year I wish......I wish for myself and for everyone Sapere Aude! Dare to know. Kant's motto of enlightment and “the freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters” .

Enlightment, reason , knowledge, a bit of chance, dare and ...maybe.....someone to guard each others solitude.

I think that is enough for one year......one lifetime even :)

As always......I still claim to be Noÿs Lambent, non-Eternal, agent of Reality change and hopeless dreamer of a humanity that will reach the Stars







And now......reality.sys corrupted......reboot Self (not Universe at least not yet anyhow) :-)

*by The Cure (which I shamelessly admit I do like)

September

Long ago, far away

Life was clear, close your eyes

Remember is a place from long ago

Remember FILLED WITH EVERYTHING YOU KNOW

Remember when you're sad and feelin' down

REMEMBER TURN AROUND

Remember life is just a memory

Remember close your eyes and you can see

Remember think of all that life can be

Remember-

Dream, love is only in a dream, remember -

Remember life is never as it seems. Dream

Long ago, far away

Life was clear, close your eyes

Harry Nillson

September in NY

I am still here

Life is pain.

Well thank you for the enlightenment dear Buddha but as I wrote some time ago in my fb I don't think the reason for life's pain is desire, I think the reason for life's pain is consciousness.

And as much as this was argued in my facebook status here it cannot be argued since ...well....it is my blog really :)

Anyway.....pain.....can be perceived in so many different ways spiritual or emotional or physical but still pain nonetheless.

The last 3 months have been a cocktail of sorts for me in this area.

Emotional due to the life changing events that took place in my life, changes I did not desire nor expected nor cared for. The very foundations I built my life upon were shuttered and I was left to gather the pieces frightened -truly frightened for what was left for me to be now- and alone.

Spiritual due to the fact that all the decisions I made in the past few years were put under the microscope and many were found wanting. Spiritual because the very meaning of my life was in question here, not just because of what happened but also because of the sudden (although not unexpected) disappearance of everyone I counted on as friend or even more. And not just disappearance but also attempts of manipulating the situation to some other ends...it is one thing to try and manipulate someone when he is strong but it is a completely another thing to do it when he is down. Now that...is cruel and immoral. Very immoral. Many of my memories from the past related to many people were shuttered and for that I am truly in pain. I was....in a very very dark and lonely place , quite resembling my images of Dante's inferno where I could see no light, only darkness.

Physical because I also got ill and was hospitalized which added to this whole situation the sudden break of my body...not unexpected under the circumstances.

But....we humans have an extreme tolerance as it seems and we also have amazing healing abilities. We have a built in mechanism to forget and survive I guess.

Well I have not forgotten, it is after all too soon , but I am beginning to see glimpses of light.

The road to enlightenment is a very lonely road , yes it is indeed, but does it really have to be so damn hard???? Yes...I guess it does.....

I was looking out my hospital window and was utterly miserable and lonely, it was evening and a very dark evening with no afterglow. Suddenly the first drops of rain started to fall, hesitant at first and then all the more bold and even violent. I got up and touched the cool windowglass with my forehead and that touch was sort of liberating, as if the anger of the storm calmed the storm within me, released me even if it was for a brief period of time.

I am used to my solitude, seek it even. Loneliness is marked by a sense of isolation. Solitude, on the other hand, is a state of being alone without being lonely and can lead to self-awareness.

In that dark place I could only enjoy my solitude in those hours of the night just before dawn when everyone is asleep, and nature is waiting for the first ray of light.

I had lost myself.

Now I am slowly beginning to find myself again but I am far too tired....oh so tired......so very tired......I do not have the luxury of being tired I have to perform, I have to be there for others and I have to work but oh I'm so very tired.

Sometimes I look at those fairy tale drawings and I see fairies sleeping this enchanted sleep of the fairy queen and I so long for that sleep, I so long to slip into this world as Marion did , to find my long saught after Avalon.

I read lately again Hamlet's monologue from the play Act III Scene I, 'To be or not to be'

Maybe it is that I have grown or maybe it is that I can finally relate to what this monologue is really about :

“	To be or not to be, that is the question; Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to — 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life, For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th'unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pitch[1] and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.[2]	”

When we have shed of this mortal coil, and in that sleep of death what dreams may come.

But then again there is this unfulfilled promise to myself, that I will travel all around the world, see some new things just like Mac said and enjoy as much of this pale blue dot as possible.

But conscience ......it does make cowards of us all......you were right Hamlet.....I had to grow to really understand.

I am still here.

(on the left my spirit on the right my psyche)







(all pictures by Arthur Hughes, John Collier and John William Waterhouse, my imaginery companions)

Reflections on a Mote of Dust -- Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

This classic photograph of the Earth was taken on December 7, 1972. The original caption is reprinted below:

View of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon. This translunar coast photograph extends from the Mediterranean Sea area to the Antarctica south polar ice cap. This is the first time the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap. Note the heavy cloud cover in the Southern Hemisphere. Almost the entire coastline of Africa is clearly visible. The Arabian Peninsula can be seen at the northeastern edge of Africa. The large island off the coast of Africa is the Malagasy Republic. The Asian mainland is on the horizon toward the northeast.

'We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot.That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known'

Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

The image is from Voyager 1 , 1990

Voyager 1 , launched on September 5 1977 is still traveling out there in the universe and is currently (in 2008) in the termination shock (The termination shock is the point in the heliosphere where the solar wind slows down to subsonic speed (with respect to the star) due to interactions with the local interstellar medium) of our Sun.

On it is the Golden Record, containing info about the Earth , Man, the diversity of the human cultures, sounds images, languages and even some thoughts in binary format for any human or other civilizations listening out there.

Carl Sagan did not see this picture of the Earth as seen from Mars taken from Mars Global Surveyor in 2003. But he would have loved it!


So when I look up in the night sky and see the stars, when I'm in need of comfort, I think of us here, on a pale blue dot........all of the human dreams and beauty and art and .... everything that Humanity is......4.5 billion years for Earth to become what it has become.....that's quite a journey...Carl said everything much more eloquently than I ever could.....my soul is in those words above......

So the pair of eyes that stare into mine should share the same......

Relativity

Relativity, always and forever, the moon eclipse as seen from the greek skies 16/08/2008

Love don't give no compensation
love don't pay no bills.
Love don't give no indication
love just won't stand still.
Love kills
drills you through your heart

Love kills
scars you from the start.
It's just a living pastime
ruling your heart line
stay for a lifetime.
Won't let you go 'cause love
love
love won't leave you alone.

Love don't take no resenvation
love is no square deal.
Hey
love don't give no justification
strikes like cold steel.
Love kills
drills you through your heart

Love kills
scars you from the start.
It's just a living pastime burning your lifeline

Gives you a hard time

Won't let you go 'cause love
love
love won`t leave you alone.
Hey
love can play with your emotions
open invitations to your heart.
Hey
love kills. Play with your emotions
open invitations to your heart

To your heart
to your heart
love kills.
Love kills
hey
hey
love kills
love kills
love kills
love kills.
Love can play with your emotions
open invitations.
Love kills
hey
drills you through your heart.
Love kills
scars you from the start.
It's just a living pastime
ruling your heart line
won't let you go.
Love kills
hey
drills you through your heart

Love kills
tears you right apart.
It won't let go
it won't let go
love kills
yeah
yeah.

And continuum

The problem with writing about something so emotionally charged, like Freddie Mercury, is that for a while afterwards you are unable to write anything else because....well.....everything else in comparison is found wanting .....

So here below is a piece about a guy who literally embodies what for me was the most important topic of an essay in high school .....

The topic was what is better, to live your life, a long life like an ant, gathering and gathering goods so that you are provided in harsher times, or sing your lungs out all summer and die at summers end.......

Of course the 'correct' thesis on this is the first, which is what all of my classmates wrote about. I chose the second one to debate on, and was met with dismay by my professors. I was only a child and even though I was a bit shaken my belief still stood strong.

I would rather die singing my lungs out, living than keep silent and gather and become just a past of the mass of constructors.

After the last few weeks I think I have realized what has obsessed me with Freddie. He actually was a Lover (with a capital L) of life and he literally died singing.

In one of his interviews he says 'well of course I love music , its my life but if for some reason I stop making songs or people stop buying them I'll do something else, I dunno, I'll become a stripper.....(reporter)and what music will you strip to Freddie? (freddie) Well my own songs of course darling!'

He accepted what he was with such dignity, with such understanding but also with such easiness that one is enchanted by him.

'I'm just a musical prostitute my dear'

You gotta love this man.

Anyway these are great artists, great men who lived. I'm not a religious person (spiritual agnostic) but there is something in the Bible that fits perfectly "Those not found written in the Book of Life will be thrown into the lake of fire"

Now I know this does not refer to people's lives, it is actually a Christian reference to the Book of Life, however in a broader sense those who do not leave their imprint on life, they will be lost, forgotten and their existence will be matter less.

He certainly left his imprint on life. So now I'm stuck and at the moment I cannot write. It is my own personal Erinya my search for meaning, my search for an imprint on this life.

I feel the moments of time like dust slipping through my fingers and I long for this imprint but I also long for - deep breath - as Freddie said - Happiness.

I want to be happy.

And that is natural I guess but people tend to forget, or rather not understand what happiness is. So...one more time.......no more guilt......I want to be HAPPY.

I want to experience the universe.

I want to share what I have become and my journey towards what awaits me with someone who longs for the same.

Oh stars, you shine so brightly, you blind me in your eternal light.

And I still love you.

Those are the days of our lives - Queen

Sometimes I get to feelin
I was back in the old days - long ago
When we were kids when we were young
Thing seemed so perfect - you know
The days were endless we were crazy we were young
The sun was always shinin - we just lived for fun
Sometimes it seems like lately - I just dont know
The rest of my lifes been just a show

Those were the days of our lives
The bad things in life were so few
Those days are all gone now but one thing is true
When I look and I find I still love you

You cant turn back the clock you cant turn back the tide
Aint that a shame
Id like to go back one time on a roller coaster ride
When life was just a game
No use in sitting and thinkin on what you did
When you can lay back and enjoy it through your kids
Sometimes it seems like lately - I just dont know
Better sit back and go with the flow

Cos these are the days of our lives
Theyve flown in the swiftness of time
These days are all gone now but some things remain
When I look and I find no change

Those were the days of our lives - yeah
The bad things in life were so few
Those days are all gone now but one things still true
When I look and I find
I still love you

I still love you

I sing the body electric

I look around the office floor and see so many people......many of them I've spent years working with, laughing with, trying with, pushing it with....

Two of my favorites are leaving this week.....so many things changing in life.....but then that's what its all about, changing....

Life is about changing and coping with change and loss but also about traveling this journey with dignity and respect and when you loose this dignity and respect having the courage to stand straight and re-claim them.

I was fortunate to have two great teachers in high school. As with all inspired people, who wish to inspire others and help them grow, they only stayed a semester, school management found some silly excuses and let them go.

One of them introduced me to the Kahlil Gibran and the Prophet as well as The road less travelled and the other to what ancient greek tragedy is all about, and especially Sophocle's Antigoni.

Now this ancient greek tragedy is about algos, greek name for extreme pain of the soul and the mind. Pain and how to rise to the best you can be under it , pain and how to still perform the duty that you bare upon yourself, duty that you choose because you choose who you are or who you become under it anyway.

It was for many years and still continues to be a belief of mine that life is mainly a solitary journey. Sometimes this solitude becomes unbearable but I think it is at those times that one really grows.

They say that time heals all wounds, thats crap in my book. Time heals some wounds, the ones that aren't really so deep even if at the time of the experience you felt as if you were going to die.

Well time does not heal all wounds. As time goes by I ache more and more about people I have lost and can never get back with, as time goes by I regret not remembering more moments with these people, as time goes by I regret remembering only the bitter end and not the wonderful beginning.

Love is such a selfless thing, I realize it more and more as I grow up. My love for my grandfather and my grandmother has not diminished one bit and many years have passed since their passing.

My love for my mother grows and becomes more mature and more desperate as time goes by.

The people who knew me when I was 'innocent', meaning not yet stricken by the hardships of life.....I miss them.

I was talking with my mother the other day and she told me I was a child that would always be asking a question , why this why that......and I recall now my curiosity about everything and my solitude even in my childhood.

A solitude based on 3 decades of evolving , how do you blend that with someone truly and honestly? I have yet to meet someone similar to me.....not that I consider this possible but it would be nice.......

My past relationships, that is what they are, past and even though many wonderful and also not so wonderful memories are left of them, they have a place in my heart and in my past.

I know I will never be the girl that spend countless sleepless nights and then went straight to work because of love. I am older now, I am more mature now, I am more hurt now.

I do not regret those nights , they are wonderful memories and at last I can remember them without pain.

But I am not the same person anymore, and I especially miss a big part of my sensuality that is gone for a long time now.

I have some idea about why this is happening.

And I also know that my soul and body are still mending.

I need a holiday as Bilbo said. And I wish I could take that long holiday.

Sometimes in the darkest hours of the night I feel so.......exhausted, like I have no more courage left. And where to find it?

Well as Freddie said 'The Show must go on'

So, my beloved self, get a grip, hold on tight and endure. More than anything endure. Things will get better :-)

"I am loved by thousands, but I feel like the loneliest man in the world." Freddie

"Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius."
Sir Edward Gibbon

"Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god."
Aristotle

"Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter where moult the wings which will bear it farther than the suns and the stars. He who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from traveling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing, reading, and writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions. "In the morning - solitude;" said Pythagoras; that Nature may speak to the imagination, as she does never in company, and that her favorite may take acquaintance with those divine strengths which disclose themselves to serious and abstracted thought. 'Tis very certain that Plato, Plotinus, Archimedes, Hermes, Newton, Milton, Wordsworth, did not live in a crowd, but descended into it from time to time as benefactors: and the wise instructor will press this point of securing to the young soul in the disposition of time and the arrangements of living, periods and habits of solitude."

-- from Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Conduct of Life"

SOLITUDE
Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breath his native air
In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter, fire.

Blest, who can unconcernedly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away
In health of body, peace of mind;
Quiet by day.

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mixed, sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die,
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

Alexander Pope

P.S. I was wrong. It took more than a month.

Perfect moments

Ever witnessed or experienced maybe is a better word a moment where you sit back and observer your life?

Its a really strange moment when you feel like u r actually sitting in the background and the environment around you, the people are interacting, going on, continuing and you are in a pause watching yourself, observing yourself actually ..... existing under these circumstances.

It has happened to me a few times and these times I vividly remember.

The strangest thing is I realized first I was having such a moment when I was very young.

I was on summer vacation with my grandparents and at that particular moment I was in the car with my grandfather. The day was really very sunny and warm, and the sea (we were near the sea) was perfect for a swim.

We were going shopping and then swimming. And I was really looking forward to it.

So at that moment, looking out of the car, I witnessed myself being happy and I thought (a cruel thought for a child) that I should hold on to this moment of perfect happiness, to remember in the years to come. I actually promised myself to remember that moment of happiness and all other moments would measure up to that.

Probably found wanting anyway.......I can never reach that sunny place anymore. And it aches........