You're my moral compass

Jesse

Passing Time

Your skin like dawn
Mine like musk

One paints the beginning
of a certain end.

The other, the end of a
sure beginning. 

Maya Angelou

This was the way the whole world ended. One child disappears and the sun slips out the sky. The moon melts down in blood. The earth ripples like a dark ocean.

Expendable - easily forgotten

“Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.” 

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” 

I didn't even know his last name. I only knew he was a drummer and that the sun rose when he smiled.

On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weakness but in her strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself--on that day love will become for her, as for man, a source of life and not of mortal danger.

“Two separate beings, in different circumstances, face to face in freedom and seeking justification of their existence through one another, will always live an adventure full of risk and promise."

Simone Beauvoir

To err is human, to forgive is divine

A million little hurtful things

There is a shock that strikes so quickly and so deep that the blow is internalized even before the skins feels it. The strike must first reach bone marrow, then ascend slowly to the brain where the slowpoke intellect records the deed.

Had she

Had she stayed 
Had she not stepped up 
Into the train that carried them down 
From the hills to the plane 
Home through Rangoon and Vientiane 
She would know that 
What kailāsaranashiva
chandramoulīphanīndramātāmukutī
zalālīkārunyasindhubhavadukhahārī
thujavīnashambomajakonatārī 
In the cripple's mouth after he spat 
At them at the standing boxcars 
Means is 
O Lord Shiva on Mount Kailash
Moon-Jeweled       Serpent-Crowned
Ocean of Mercy       Remover of Delusion
Protect me        I surrender

"To have confidence to search for something when we have no idea where it is..."

Bolton

La respuesta

Si me preguntaras qué es lo que más quiero sobre la anchura de la tierra, yo te contestaría: a ti, amor mío, y a la gente sencilla de mi pueblo. Dulce eres, como la tierra, como ella frutal y hermosa. Pero a ti te quiero. No por bella que eres. Ni por lo fluvial de tus ojos, cuando ven que voy y vengo, buscando, como un ciego, el color que se me ha perdido en la memoria. Ni por lo salvaje de tu cuerpo indomable. Ni por la rosa de fuego, que se entrega cuando la levanto del fondo de la sangre con las manos jardineras de mis besos. A ti te quiero, porque eres la mía. La compañera que la vida me dió, para ir luchando por el mundo. Amo a la gente sencilla de mi pueblo, porque son sangre que necesito, cuando sufro y me desangro; hombres que me necesitan cuando sufren. Porque nosotros somos los más fuertes, pero también los más débiles. Somos la lágrima. La sonrisa. Lo dolorosamente humano. La unidad de lo mejor y de lo más deplorable. Lo que canta sobre la tierra y lo que llora sobre ella. De ellos recibí esta voz, este corazón inquieto que me apoya y me fortalece y me lleva consigo. Por eso los amo como son y también como serán. Porque ellos son buenos y serán mejores. Y juntos nos jugamos el destino, con nuestras manos que todo lo construyen. Así amo yo la vida y amo a la humanidad, amor mío, cuando te amo y amo a los hombres sencillos de mi bello y horrendo país.

Los amantes

Se habían
encontrado hace poco.
Y hace pronto
se habían separado,
llevándose
cada uno consigo
su nunca o su jamás
su afirmación de olvido,
su golpeador dolor.

Pero el último beso
que volara de sus bocas,
era un planeta azul.
Girando
en torno a su ausencia.
Y ellos
vivían de su luz
igual que de su recuerdo.


Otto René Castillo

Vulnerability says

                                                                                           the silhouette of pines against midnight skyline

is spiked,
like any longing to escape.

Warning: World's edge shifts
as if with its own sentience.

Roll your tongue inside your mouth.
Sensations, not the edges, meet.

As if the worst thing you've done
is already forgiven—

the cool of this windowpane,
the blue of this china cup.

Strategy: Not giving it shape, but giving in to the shapes
you've become.

What should be kept, besides compassion for the vanity
of idea?

                                                                                                           Only the "coming to" in seeing— 

My son's legs are solid as pestles 
and runic stones, 
as tapered as larch trees. 
I delight in the perfection of his legs. 
It's for him that our ancestors 
reared up and stuttered across the plains. 
For him that those on two legs 
slowly straightened their spines 
and rolled back Promethean shoulders. 
So that my son can walk through the house 
in his underwear when he should be sleeping. 
So that I can turn him out of my room 
on his glorious legs— 
no firebird's golden feathers more precious 
than those corn cob thighs. 
No seraphims' burning wings more glorious 
than those calves unbloomed with veins.
And those wide, always dirty feet, 
that run when they should walk. 
Twinned staffs, swords, thunderbolts!

The final chapter of Osho has been the best; the rest falls away in insignificance. This was the part I was supposed to read. It made me smile knowing I am on my way to intuition, that so much of this already makes sense. There is no destination in life - only the journey - Osho teaches us that there's direction and direction is good but a destination is not. I get caught up with my friends' destinations, their illusions, but that's all they are - destinations to create a future that noone can secure.

I just scribbled down this note never to the 'afterword' destination, partly for me, partly for Julia who I hope to give the book onto.

Have direction, make the most of everyday, be joyful, follow your inner guide and remember there's no destination, only a journey.

.....

A destination is a clear-cut thing: direction is intuitive. A destination is something outside of you, more like a thing. A direction is an inner feeling, not an object, can feel direction, you cannot know it. Destination is in the future. Once decided, you start manipulating your life toward it, steering your life toward it.
How can you decide the future? Who are you to decide the unknown? How is it possible to fix the future. By fixing your a destination your future is no longer a future because it is no longer open.

You cannot decide direction, you can only live this moment that is available to you. By living it, direction arises.  Destination is fixed by the mind; direction is earned by living.
Direction? - one simply lives the moment in deep trust that life will decide. One lives this moment so totally that out of this totality a freshness is born. Out of this totality the past dissolves and the future starts taking shape. But this shape is not given by you, this shape is earned by you.

Yes, a map is not needed; great passion, great desire to discover, is needed. Then I leave you alone. Then you go on your own. Move into the vast, into the infinite, and by and by, learn to trust it.

Leave yourself in the hands of life.

Because this moment, this is it. It may be life, it may be death; it may be success, it may be failure, it may be happiness, it may be unhappiness.

Each moment....this is it.

Mind blowing. It took the whole book, I couldnt connect with it at all, the parables didnt move me, didnt seem relevant then he leaves with this. The key to life. 

I still can't distinguish the difference between my inner fear (my mind) and my inner guide but I do have faith in life taking us where we need to go, giving us lessons we need to learn, experiences we need to live, mistakes we have to make, love we need to feel, sadness we cannot fathom, time alone, time with friends - encounters with guides, soul mates. Knowing there is a reason, that makes it all so much easier. Some call it destiny, I'm not sure that is what it is, but it's faith that everything happens for a reason, and if we listen to our hearts and follow that, we can never go wrong. It doesnt mean life wont be hard, but it gives me faith that what I face and what happens is for a higher good and reason and I can get through it.