meaning

The meaning and purpose of dancing is the dance. Like music, also, it is fulfilled in each moment of its course. You do not play a sonata in order to reach the final chord, and if the meaning of things were simply in ends, composers would write nothing but finales.

-- Alan Watts The Wisdom of Insecurity

voice

I thought about how lucky I was to receive a sign from God. I didn't deserve it, I knew, but it had happened, there was no denying it. As the shadows bled into darkness, I prayed for a way to follow up on my end of the deal — to make myself what God wanted me to be — and right away it struck me, and it wouldn't go away, no matter how much I fought it, and the thought was so loud and insistent and contrary to every impulse in my body that it occurred to me maybe the voice in my head wasn't mine. So I decided to suck it up and listen.

--Peter Farrelly The Comedy Writer

some dreams

Yeah, when you wish upon a star
Buddy, don't you miss it
Catch it 'fore it falls too far
Keep it with your secrets
'Cause some dreams don't ever come true
Don't ever come true
Don't ever come true
But some dreams do

-- Steve Earle

It ceased to hurt me, though so slow

It ceased to hurt me, though so slow
I could not feel the Anguish go —
But only knew by looking back —
That something — had benumbed the Track —

Nor when it altered, I could say,
For I had worn it, every day,
As constant as the Childish frock —
I hung upon the Peg, at night.

But not the Grief — that nestled close
As needles — ladies softly press
To Cushions Cheeks —
To keep their place —

Nor what consoled it, I could trace —
Except, whereas 'twas Wilderness —
It's better — almost Peace —

-- Emily Dickinson

fear

One of the things which danger does to you after a time is — well, to kill emotion. I don't think I shall ever feel anything again except fear. None of us can hate anymore — or love.


-- Graham Greene The Confidential Agent 1939

26 May

I'm making an effort to finish the article for L'Art du XXe siecle. I feel that I won't succeed in saying even the essential. I have to send it off in a few days, and every time I write under pressure, I write poorly.

I would have liked to analyze especially the religious significance of the "destruction of worlds" (traditional artistic worlds). To be compared to the ritual scenarios ("primitive" and paleo-Oriental) of periodic destruction and re-creation of the cosmos. The religious necessity for the abolition of old, tired, inauthentic forms ("illusory," "idolatrous"). All this corresponds in a certain sense to the death of God proclaimed by Nietzsche. But there is more: the passion for matter resembles the pre-Mosaic cosmic religiosity. The modern artist who can no longer believe in the Judeo-Christian tradition ("God is dead") is returning, without noticing it, to "paganism," to cosmic hierophanies: substance as such incarnates and manifests the sacred.

-- Mircea Eliade Journal 1964

Chaos and Order

Then there was neither Aught nor Nought;
Nor air nor sky beyond.
What covered all? Where rested all? In watery gulf profound?
Nor death was then, nor deathlessness,
Nor change of night and day.
That One breathed calmly, self-sustained;
Nought else beyond it lay.
Gloom hid in gloom existed first—one sea, eluding view.
That One, a void in chaos wrapt, by inward fervor grew.
Within it first arose desire, the primal germ of mind,
Which nothing with existence links, as sages searching find.
The kindling ray that shot across the dark and drear abyss.
Was it beneath? or high aloft? What bard can answer this?
There fecundating powers were found, and mighty forces strove.
A self-supporting mass beneath, and energy above.
Who knows, whoever told, from whence this vast creation rose?
No gods had then been born.
Who then can e'er the truth disclose?
Whence sprang this world,
And whether framed by hand divine or no.
Its lord in heaven alone can tell, if even he can show.

-- Rg Veda X.129, translated by J. Muir in Original Sanskrit Texts

Outwitted

He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!

-- Edwin Markham

sunday morning

Once my heart was captured, reason was shown the door, deliberately and with a sort of frantic joy. I accepted everything, I believed everything, without struggle, without suffering, without regret, without false shame. How can one blush for what one adores?

-- George Sand

Prospero's line

We are such stuff
as dreams are made on
and our little life
is rounded with a sleep

-- Shakespeare The Tempest