11 posts tagged “light”

410. The Point

Aug 27, 2009
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'I'm just gonna go for broke on this one and say that we do it because life is so ridiculously gorgeous, strange, heartbreaking, horrific, etc., that we are compelled to describe it to ourselves, but we can't! We cannot do it! And so we make art.'

- Miranda July

408. 'This exchange of gifts - mysterious - settled deep inside me...'

Aug 5, 2009
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Diamond-Lil

'Playing in the lot behind the house one day when he was still a little boy, Neruda discovered a hole in a fence board. "I looked through the hole and saw a landscape like that behind our house, uncared for, and wild. I moved back a few steps, because I sensed vaguely that something was about to happen. All of a sudden a hand appeared - a tiny hand of a boy about my own age. By the time I came close again, the hand was gone, and it its place there was a marvellous white toy sheep.

"The sheep's wool was faded. Its wheels had escaped. All of this only made it more authentic. I had never seen such a wonderful sheep. I looked back through the hole but the boy had disappeared. I went into the house and brought out a treasure of my own; a pine cone, opened, full of odor and resin, which I adored. I set it down in the same spot and went off with the sheep.

"I never saw either the hand or the boy again. And I have never seen a sheep like that either. The toy I lost finally in a fire. But even now...whenever I pass a toyshop, I look furtively into the window. It's no use. They don't make sheep like that anymore."

Neruda has commented on this incident several times. "This exchange of gifts - mysterious - settled deep inside me like a sedimentary deposit," he once remarked in an interview. And he associates the exchange with his poetry. "I have been a lucky man. To feel the intimacy of brothers is a marvellous thing in life. To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel the affection that comes from those whom we do not know, from those unknown to us, who are watching over our sleep and solitude, over our dangers and our weaknesses - that is something still greater and more beautiful because it widens out the boundaries of our being, and unites all living things.

"That exchange brought home to me for the first time a precious idea: that all humanity is somehow together... It won't surprise you then that I have attempted to give something resiny, earthlike, and fragrant in exchange for human brotherhood...

"This is the great lesson I learned in my childhood, in the backyard of a lonely house. Maybe it was nothing but a game two boys played who didn't know each other and wanted to pass to the other some good things of life. Yet maybe this small and mysterious exchange of gifts remained inside me also deep and indestructible, giving my poetry light."'

- Story about Pablo Neruda via the final passage of Lewis Hyde's The Gift.

398. Who eats light?

Jun 2, 2009
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Bamboo

WHAT SHE WANTED

What she wanted was to return

to the original rainforest

hear water pushing

through the sapwood

and leaves eating light

as she wanted to eat light.

She knew her nature

was to be water, not wood.

She knew there was a grove

of vertical rivers

of roaring waterfall-trees,

and a grove of whirlpool-trees

with vortices she could dive through,

past the hollow years of her life

right back to the roots.

- Pascale Petit

via WhiskeyRiver: http://whiskeyriver.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-she-wanted-what-she-wanted-was-to.html

385. Free-thinking rebel vs. contented romantic...

Mar 12, 2009
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Prisms

'...that there is, perhaps, some tension in society, when perhaps overwhelming pressure brings industry to a standstill or barricades to the street years after the liberals had dismissed the notion as "dated romanticism", the journalist invents the theory that this constitutes a clash of generations. Youth, after all, is not a permanent condition, and a clash of the generations is not so fundamentally dangerous to the art of government as would be a clash between rulers and ruled.'

- Excerpted from The Clash CD liner notes (UK version of The Clash's First Album)

'So close no matter how far

Couldnt be much more from the heart

Forever trusting who we are

And nothing else matters

Never opened myself this way

Life is ours, we live it our way

All these words I dont just say

And nothing else matters

Trust I seek and I find in you

Every day for us something new

Open mind for a different view

And nothing else matters...'

- Excerpted from Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters"

377. Everybody wins.

Feb 26, 2009
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G-C-Light

'Even if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to them will flood the soul.'

- Simone Weil

'All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.'

- J.R.R. Tolkien

'When you give each other everything, it becomes an even trade. Each wins all.'

- Lois Bujold

353. Don't hide your light.

Feb 4, 2009
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Star

'Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death.'
- James Byrnes

'All the arts we practice are apprenticeship. The big art is our life.'
- M.C. Richards

'Shine on you crazy diamond.'
- Roger Waters

349. Ready for spending.

Jan 27, 2009
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Lights

'And so it happens I often twist my hair up out of laziness into a blonde snail's shell behind my neck and fasten it with an elastic band. Later, when I take the all-day elastic out, perfume is released like some newly minted silver coin, bright and oblivious and ready for spending.'
- Theresa Duncan

304. Come sit by the fire.

Jul 2, 2008
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Fiery

'In the old days, once the sun went down, the only source of light people had, other than the changing moon and firmament of stars, was fire. For millions of years, we human beings sat around fires, gazing into the flames and embers with cold and darkness at our backs. Maybe this is where formal meditation first got its start.
Fire was a comfort to us, our source of heat, light, and protection - dangerous but, with great care, controllable. Sitting by it gave us relaxation at the end of the day. In it's warm, flickering light, we could tell stories and talk about the day past, or just sit silently, seeing the reflection of our minds in the ever-changing flames and the glowing landscapes of a magical world. Fire made the darkness bearable, and helped us feel secure and sage. It was calming, reliable, restoring, meditative, and absolutely necessary for survival.' - p.173 Wherever You Go There You Are by Jon Kabat Zinn. p.s. There isn't a single page in this book that isn't profound and amazing.

279. Defy Categorization

May 30, 2008
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Whatever-I-Want

We love this kind of rebellious thinking; the kind of thoughts that allow for the appreciation and validation of all kinds of creations without needing to compare them to others or parse them down so they will fit into previously established pigeon holes. There is something to be said for just liking what you like and making what you want regardless of what 'they' might say.

'I thought, Well isn't that what the state of art is right now? It's not so easy to define. "Oh yeah, they're a painter, they're a sculptor...." It's just labels. When you go into a record store and it says "alternative" to describe a sort of music, isn't every music an alternative to another type of music? These labels are ridiculous. I think the need to label things and have things fit so nicely into their boxes is just old.'

'I don't know the history of art, but I got over intimidation from the art world when I realized that I was allowed to feel whatever I want and like whatever I want.'

- Marc Jacobs via Interview Magazine.

273. Lucky #17

May 24, 2008
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Lucky-Light

We present the lighter-than-air seventeenth Citrine talisman for you to enjoy in any fashion you choose; meditate on it, start a new day looking at it, print it out and color it with crayons, hang it over your bed, hide it in your friend's car or just read it and let it go to work for you...

"In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary." ~Aaron Rose

"When you possess light within, you see it externally." ~Anaïs Nin

"For light, go directly to the source of the light, not any reflections" - Fortune Cookie

Tal·is·man (tāl'ĭs-mən)

1. An object marked with magic signs and believed to confer on its bearer supernatural powers or protection.
2. Something that apparently has magic power.

(Quotes via QuoteGarden.com., Fortune Cookie message from ???)