Bonnitta: Working with Horses
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Sing it With Abandon
"How all things are in migrations! How they seek refuge in us. How each of them desires to be relieved of externality and to live again in the Beyond which we enclose and deepen within ourselves. We are convents of lived things, dreamed things, impossible things; all that is in awe of this century saves itself within us and there, on its knees, pays its debt to eternity.
Little cemeteries that we are, adorned with the flowers of our futile gestures, containing so many corpses that demand that we testify to their souls. All prickly with crosses, all covered with inscriptions, all spaded up and shaken by countless daily burials, we are charged with the transmutation, the ressurection, the transfiguration of all things. For how can we save what is visible if not by using the language of absence, of the invisible? And how to speak this language that remains mute unless we sing it with abandon and without any insistence on being understood." -Rainier Maria Rilke, Letter to Sophy Giauque, November 26, 1925
Eliade on Shamanism
Shamanism is important not only for the place it
holds in the history of mysticism. The shamans have played an essential role in
the defense of the psychic integrity of the community. They are pre-eminently
the antidemonic champions; they combat not only demons and disease, but also
the black magicians. . . . In a general way, it can be said that shamanism
defends life, health, fertility, the world of 'light' against death,
disease, sterility, disaster and the world of 'darkness'"
(Eliade, pg. 508, Shamanism).
Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order
Life and beauty in the built world arise only from processes which allow living structure to unfold. The secret lies in knowing, as nature does, what must happen in what order: what sequence of events allows a living form to unfold successfully.
Here, in Book 2, Alexander puts forward a fully developed theory of living process. He defines conditions for a process to be living: that is, capable of generating living structure. He shows how such processes work, and how they may be created. At the core of the new theory is the theory of structure-preserving transformations. This concept, new in scientific thinking, is based on the concept of wholeness defined in Book 1: A structure-preserving transformation is one which preserves, extends, and enhances the wholeness of a system. Structure-preserving transformations provide the means for any step-by-step process - social, biological, architectural, or technical - to reach configurations which are most profound, most capable of supporting life. The process of creation - whether in the formation of a single object, or in the piecemeal aggregation of a town - requires this sort of generative process, a careful and deliberate sequence of steps in which each step creates the context for the next one, and each next wholeness is derived from the previous wholeness.
Here, in Book 2, Alexander puts forward a fully developed theory of living process. He defines conditions for a process to be living: that is, capable of generating living structure. He shows how such processes work, and how they may be created. At the core of the new theory is the theory of structure-preserving transformations. This concept, new in scientific thinking, is based on the concept of wholeness defined in Book 1: A structure-preserving transformation is one which preserves, extends, and enhances the wholeness of a system. Structure-preserving transformations provide the means for any step-by-step process - social, biological, architectural, or technical - to reach configurations which are most profound, most capable of supporting life. The process of creation - whether in the formation of a single object, or in the piecemeal aggregation of a town - requires this sort of generative process, a careful and deliberate sequence of steps in which each step creates the context for the next one, and each next wholeness is derived from the previous wholeness.
Ars Poetica? by Czeslaw Milosz
Ars Poetica?
I have always aspired to a more spacious form
that would be free from the claims of poetry or prose
and would let us understand each other without exposing
the author or reader to sublime agonies.
In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent:
a thing is brought forth which we didn't know we had in us,
so we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung out
and stood in the light, lashing his tail.
That's why poetry is rightly said to be dictated by a daimonion,
though its an exaggeration to maintain that he must be an angel.
It's hard to guess where that pride of poets comes from,
when so often they're put to shame by the disclosure of their frailty.
What reasonable man would like to be a city of demons,
who behave as if they were at home, speak in many tongues,
and who, not satisfied with stealing his lips or hand,
work at changing his destiny for their convenience?
It's true that what is morbid is highly valued today,
and so you may think that I am only joking
or that I've devised just one more means
of praising Art with thehelp of irony.
There was a time when only wise books were read
helping us to bear our pain and misery.
This, after all, is not quite the same
as leafing through a thousand works fresh from psychiatric clinics.
And yet the world is different from what it seems to be
and we are other than how we see ourselves in our ravings.
People therefore preserve silent integrity
thus earning the respect of their relatives and neighbors.
The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.
What I'm saying here is not, I agree, poetry,
as poems should be written rarely and reluctantly,
under unbearable duress and only with the hope
that good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument.
Czeslaw Milosz
via poemhunter.com
Mary Oliver
Don't bother me.
I've just
been born.
The butterfly's loping flight
carries it through the country of the leaves...
for long delicious moments it is perfect
lazy, riding motionless in the breeze on the soft stalk
of some ordinary flower.
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things, I lay
on the grass listening
to his dog voice,
crow voice,
frog voice: now,
he said, and now.
and never once mentioned forever,
which has nevertheless always been,
like a sharp iron hoof,
at the center of my mind.One or two things are all you need
to travel over the blue pond...
some deep
memory of pleasure, some cutting
knowledge of pain.
But to lift the hoof!
For that you need an idea.For years and years I struggled
just to love my life. And then
the butterfly
rose, weightless, in the wind.
"don't love your life
too much," it said,
and vanished into the world.
The Star Thrower by Loren Eiseley
There was a man who was walking along a sandy beach where thousands of starfish had been washed up on the shore. He noticed a boy picking the starfish one by one and throwing them back into the ocean. The man observed the boy for a few minutes and then asked what he was doing. The boy replied that he was returning the starfish to the sea, otherwise they would die. The man asked how saving a few, when so many were doomed, would make any difference whatsoever? The boy picked up a starfish and threw it back into the ocean and said "Made a difference to that one..." The man left the boy and went home, deep in thought of what the boy had said. He soon returned to the beach and spent the rest of the day helping the boy throw starfish in to the sea....
via webtree.ca
From John O'Donohue's Anam Cara: A book of Celtic Wisdom
Spirituality is the art of transfiguration. We should not force ourselves to change by hammering our lives into any pre-determined shape. We do not need to operate according to the idea of a predetermined program or plan for our lives. Rather, we need to practice a new art of attention to the inner rhythm of our days and lives. This attention brings a new awareness of our own human and divine presence.
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