(With huge kudos to Rena for this one).
What a wonderful, beautiful day!
Today was cold and rainy. A good day to stay inside and read, and read I did. Starting off with a morning perusal of my usual (non-myspace) blogs. I came across this by Goethe:
One ought every day at least,
to hear a little song,
read a good poem,
see a fine picture,
and, if it were possible,
to speak a few reasonable words.
So I cleansed both stones (might as well do them both if I’m doing one). There are a few methods you can use, and as 1. it’s been cloudy for days and there is no sign of sun, and 2. it’s not full moon yet, I chose to run them under the tap for a while and then sit them overnight on an amethyst druse (or cluster) I just happened to have. I sound like a crystal nut – but I’m not. I swear these are the only three ‘stones’ I own. So now they are supposedly cleared of any former and/or negative vibrations, I am meant to program the one I want to use. Which will happen very simply by doing the exercise as I described it yesterday. So now I’m set. I just have to pull my finger out and finally do the exercise.
I mentioned in my last post that I had found my green stone. Or it found me 🙂 A friend called it a literal touchstone and in fact, it has been … in the past.
The stone directly relates to working on an Eric Maisel exercise, from the book “Coaching the Artist Within – advice for writers, actors, visual artists & musicians from America’s foremost creativity coach”. This particular chapter is about ‘passionately making meaning’ or living passionately. Or translating our values into the way we live. There are five components to this.
I do believe I am returning to my former book-geek self … at last. And in the process, currently, I am falling in love with Anais Nin.
I read both of the stories of Poe’s that were recommended to me and I have to say that it’s true … ‘The Domain of Arnheim’ is indeed a detailed description of ‘The Voyage of Life Youth’ painting by Thomas Cole. Beautiful beautiful thing … beautiful Poe (Lydecker – I have found ‘Narrative of A. Gordon Pym’ and will give that a good read soon.)
Kate Chopin’s ‘The Awakening’ left me a little rattled. Following it up with Anais Nin’s diary is not helping … or is helping … whichever way I care to look at it at any given time.
De Rien
A book laid by …
left open at the page where you last were reading,
face down.
A story that started so promisingly
but now, gathering dust,
neglected until the time when
there is nothing more to amuse;
until boredom causes you to reach for it
when you casually remember it is there,
unfinished
but like a faithful lover,
it waits.
Does it care
that you are no longer entranced by the riches it holds?
That the pleasure it once gave now bores you?
That you no longer have the lust to discover its secrets?
And
what of its beauty you once found so bewitching?
You have gazed on it long enough that it is now commonplace
to you.
Ah, how it longs for you to pick it up and once again partake
If you would but give of yourself time and curiosity
You would be reminded of what passed before
And find still innumerable pleasures
to soothe delight arouse beguile
and make you smile.
Instead, how patient it must be
awaiting tedium to take hold of you,
returning on your terms only
so you might feign interest,
giving it a cursory glance
for a minute or two.
Nothing of consequence.
Like the dandelion …
ephemeral fluff
awaiting your breath
to denude it
copyright 2007
It is winter here in the Land of Oz, and a colder winter than it has been in many a mild year. But it is not the cold of winter, in a physical sense, of which I speak here. Yet … “now is the winter of my discontent”.
I’ve not really been my usual self for a while. I’ve been blogging about mythology, movies, music; I’ve been pasting poetry, prose, old posts … anything to distract me. A friend said to me in an email … “you seem pretty quiet about your life lately”. And so I have been. And hadn’t really realised it totally until she said it.
I have been feeling restless for a while now. Not angsty in a despairing writhing kind of way … but a trifle melancholy none the less. Uneasy. Remember me saying a while back that I felt fragile and translucent, like one of Laura’s glass animals in The Glass Menagerie? Well a friend, the same friend, shared something with me that totally defined the feeling. Better than I ever could have. From a Suzanne Vega song:
Today I am
a small blue thing
made of china
made of glass
Today I read a beautiful thing. The Sycophant wrote a poem to somebody important … his Muse. And it got me thinking, once again, about the Titan Goddess Mnemosyne and her nine daughters, the Muses.
There have been some things I’ve mentioned lately in previous blogs, and things I’ve mentioned in blogs long back, that relate to this post today.
My ‘quiet’ weekend and a few talks with close friends lately have helped me to make some pretty big (for me) realisations about the way my life’s been heading (or not) this year. As a result of these things, especially the chats I’ve had, I’m feeling a bit more focussed and quite excited and inspired about ‘getting back on the path’.
Dear Dr Drug, Ph.D
No fix today to allay the yearning
for one drop of word to feed the fervour one more day.
But not to be .. no thought of me
or how you leave me craving,
wasting for the want of one more word.
No seductive luring glance in my direction
no need to read affection left from yesterday
no sleep no food no thing will serve to ease my passion
oh cruel seducter, to leave me longing in this fashion.
(Note: “Seducter” is from an obscure international language called Interlingue. Translated it means “allure”.)
Tonight I feel compelled to write about obsession. You think you know where I am going with this … but you don’t hehehe 🙂
Yesterday I read a great blog written by Johhny Ska – Obsession. Johnny and Jimmy Ska are talented comedians who write a fair amount of insightful blogs. Some of them I don’t agree with, but this one really struck a chord. So then I had to re-read something in one of my favourite books … Eric Maisel’s “Coaching the Artist Within”. Then, of course, I had to spend some time online researching how it relates to gifted people, because I knew there would be people on here that would be interested in that. And lo and behold if there is not an article on the subject written by Eric Maisel on talentdevelop.com (a website devoted to all things “gifted adult”). Which, naturally, went over basically the same stuff as he did in the book. And so here we are.
I said it over at Johnny Ska’s blog and I’ll say it here. Too many people see obsession as being a purely negative thing. People think of the word “obsession” and invariably connect it with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or with stalkers. Clinical definitions of the word don’t help: