Mirror

This is not about you. Nor about me. Better: it's no longer about you, me or us because we learned, with it's ups and downs, to hold the mirror.

Observation. Seeing people struggle. Feel that people are dishonest about their objectives. Smell that people think something else than what comes out of their mouth with words. Read in between the lines that someone is blaming "always" the outside world for all the bad luck in their life.

What to do? All we can do is listen and be sensitive. If they ask for help we can hold the mirror and share what we see (smell, taste ... and using all other senses for input). We can ask questions and let the other(s) find answers. Find their answers at their speed. 

Mirror as in ... 

Thousand Flowers

'Millefiori' is the Italian word for 'thousand flowers'. The ancient Romans used a glasswork technique with this name. Look at this beautiful example. Perfect - just like you:

 Millefiori Glass Bowl. Roman 100-0 BC. RMO Leiden

Take me to ...

Ilha de Santo Antão

Pictures from Sjor Massar and @Kalzennyg.

Or Glass

Still handy for us 'homo sapiens' today. How to make an axe from stone or glass. If available use glasses for protection of your eyes because the splinters can cause terrible damage to your eyesight.

In other words, be prepared.

Recommended by D.B.

On David Bowie's reading list I found two books - and two books only - I added to my 'books to read':
1. Alberto Denti di Pirajno, 'A Cure For Serpents. A Doctor in Africa' (1952) #italian #nordafrica #WWII #Libya #doctor #medicine. A bookreview: here.

2. Camille Paglia, 'Sexual Personae Art and Decandence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson' (1990). According to the Wikipedia lemma on this book, the book was not recieved very well. #fringe #fuss #history #WesternCulture #Apollo-vs-Dionysus #order-vs-chaos #rational-vs-irrational.

Cho...Inter....ose

Are you intelligent? Am I? The history of the word 'intelligent' is only 500 years old. How young! Derived from the Latin words for 'between' and 'choose'.

Do you choose the right road or direction? The right one between all the roads you could choose? Do I?

More questions:

• Is there only one right road? More than one? Many?  
• In every aspect of life: school, work, love, kids, books, holidays, dreams, ... - the list is endless? 
• Indifferent because in the end we all die - whatever roads we took?
• Only relevant in retrospect? If we - still alive - look over our shoulders on the (trail and error) tracks we took.
• Wrong metaphor: the choises in life are not 'roads'?
• Did our ancestors take the wrong metaphor: is there nothing to 'choose' after all? 
• Situational, cultural and historical biased?
• Planet Earth biased? Are all of us just dancing on the ship Titanic?

Last week David Bowie (1947-2016) died. Ashes to ashes. Did you know that he loved reading books too? His #top100=top75 #book list: here. I am not impressed. Are you?

Nua no Paraíso

Me sitting naked, on a hot day in paradise, next to Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902-1987) on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro.

This picture is better. In the one above I had my socks on ;)

Why Rio? To ... look over the ocean. To decipher the night sky. A red, pure and tragic star. And its rays of glory and hope.

P.S. Last sentences and quote on bench are from poem 'Mas Viveremos', in 'A Rosa do Povo' (1945).

Without Title

P.S. This location is probably on the Cabo Verde Islands. I don't know where exactly. Source: video of song 'Flor de Bilo' from Neuza (3:18).

State of Mind ...

 

No Pill Direct Access. Clean First

Thursday, two weeks ago I asked a good friend: "Why don't you drink alcohol? Don't you need being intoxicated every now and then?" Answer: "No!" My follow-up question: "Did you know that alcohol is one of many ways for the mystic to reach That?" Answer: "No!" Next to that he explained that he didn't know much about mysticism.

All the above puzzles me. He is a renowned historian who still has the ability to stay curious and wonder.

How to explain my direct experiences with That to someone who apparently never experienced feeling One with humanity and planet Earth with everyone and everything on it? I was given That three times:

• Czestochowa (Poland) in 1984. More
• Aswan (Egypt) in 1987. More
• Castelo de Vide (Portugal) in 1990. More

I did experience That without being intoxicated. Is it a coincidence that all three were abroad? All I know is that I felt pregnant with It for days. I never looked for That. It happened to me. Meanwhile I learned that looking for It makes no sense. It has to be granted. You can literally take no pill for It. 

After my first direct experience with That I hadn't words and a language to speak with. Only after reading Catharina  Dessaur's book 'De Droom der Rede' (1982) I understood that I had my moment of enlightenment. 

Back to being intoxicated. These roads or gates seem "proven" as good 'soma' for entering That (not exhaustive):

• Fasting
• Praying
• Meditation
• Alcohol
• Sex
• Laurier blades
• Hemlock
• Fly agaric
• Other psychedelic drugs
• ... - there must be more

Gates for entering but ... you will never know for sure - there is no guarantee - if you will experience That. (Mark that I don't write "see".) It has to be granted. In a way you have to be ready, clean or pure first. Donna Tartt, 'The Secret History' (1992):

"Only this. To recieve the god, in this or any other mystery, one has to be in a state of 'euphemia', cultic purity. That is at the very center of bacchic mystery. Even Plato speaks of it. Before the Divine can take over, the mortal self - the dust of us, the part that decays - must be made clean as possible."