The Conscious Cataclysm: August 2011

8/18/11

Antoneta Wotringer

8/10/11

Gianluca Nespoli

Tao Te Ching Verse IV

The Tao is like an empty bowl,yet it may be used

without ever needing to be filled.

It is the deep and unfathomable

source of the ten thousand things.

Blunt the sharpness.

Untie the knot.

Soften the glare.

Settle with the dust.

It is hidden deep yet ever present.

I do not know whose child it is.

It existed before the common ancestor.

Marcin Sacha

8/9/11

Tao Te Ching Verse III

Not exalting the talented prevents rivalry.

Not valuing goods that are hard to obtain

prevents stealing.

Not displaying desirable things

prevents confusion of the heart.

Therefore, the True Person governs

by emptying the heart of desire

and filling the belly with food,

weakening ambitions and strengthening bones.

If the people are simple and free from desire,

then the clever ones never dare to interfere.

Practise action without striving

and all will be in order.

8/7/11

"It is said that the Tao Te Ching can not be understood any more than you can understand a river. If you wish to experience the river you must jump in. Many things in the Tao Te Ching will confuse you.The confusion is not to be conquered. It does not result from a lack of knowledge. This confusion is a teacher that can teach you about yourself, your story, your people, your world and the still point of the universe to which we give the crude name - the Tao.

There are no footnotes of commentary here. These words of the Tao are to be hung like bells in our hearts and rung by the motions we make as we move through our daily lives. Any other sounds make it difficult to hear the bells.

The Tao is universal. It is not Chinese. Its is found in the quest of Christian mystics, native Americans, Zen monks, desert holy men, and indeed in every culture and age in the story of the earth. Before this story began and after it ends there is the Tao. It consists of stillness and silence and it will enter into any quiet heart."

From the preface of the Tolbert McCarroll translation.

Tao Te Ching Verse II

All under heaven see beauty as beauty

only because they also see ugliness.

All announce that good is good

only because they also denounce what is bad.

Therefore, something and nothing give birth to one another.

Difficult and easy complete one another.

Long and short fashion one another.

High and low arise from one another.

Notes and tones harmonise with one another.

Front and back follow one another.

Thus, the True Person acts without striving

and teaches without words.

Deny nothing to the ten thousand things.

Nourish them without claiming authority,

Benefit them without demanding gratitude,

Do the work, then move on.

And, the fruits of your labour will last forever.

Pearl Said It

"Love cannot be forced, love cannot be coaxed and teased. It comes out of heaven, unasked and unsought." Pearl S. Buck

"Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness." Pearl S Buck

"There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream -- whatever that dream might be." Pearl S. Buck

"I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels." Pearl S. Buck

"One faces the future with one's past." Pearl S. Buck

"Sorrow fully accepted brings its own gifts. For there is alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmitted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness." Pearl S. Buck

"Every mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied." Pearl S. Buck

8/5/11

Experiment V

Erlend Mork

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise.

Maya Angelou

8/4/11

Getting Mentally Prepared

It won't be long before I start another round of treatment to try and get rid of my Hepatitis C. As I've posted before I've gone through the treatment once already and didn't beat the virus. This time around they are adding a protease inhibiter to the standard Inteferon and Ribavirin. From what I understand the triple therapy is twice as hard as the course of treatment I went through the first time, and the first time was really super hard for me.

Before I started treatment the last time, I got myself all geared up and ready to beat the disease. I was super positive and all gung-ho. "I'm gonna beat this thing, just wait and see." Then after 48 weeks of increasingly good test results, bam, they weren't good enough and the virus started replicating again. I was so upset and even embarrased. Embarrased because of all the talk I did about how I was beating it and all.

This time I'm having a really hard time getting into the right frame of mind to make it through the 48 weeks. I know what it's like to get let down when it doesn't work. I keep telling myself that I really don't have an option. I've got to try it again. Still, there's a part of me that is doubtful. I wonder if I should really put myself through all that again. What if it doesn't work again this time?

I guess I will try and think of the treatment as a battle between the bad virus thingys and the good medicine thingys...The virus thingys having holed up in my liver and the medicine thingys trying to get in and destroy them. A bit simplistic I know but it worked for me the last time. When you're too sick and tired to get out of bed it's best to keep it simple in my opinion.

I was actually in bed thinking about all this and couldn't sleep, so I got up and started writing. I think now I've exhausted all my thoughts about the treatment. At least for tonight.

Enjoy Life...

Dead Letter And The Infinite Yes

I found a letter it read

"Our existence has serious side effects"

Turned on, turned on the television

It's telling me the world is collapsing

I think it's coming and it comes so fast

I'm hearing whispers of an infinite yes

And I don't know why it is

Our bodies are dead, why you look so sad?

And my therapist said

"We've evolved through a series of accidents"

There's been talk of chemical imbalances

Restless sense of detachment, nausea and or violence

I think it's coming and it comes so fast

I'm hearing whispers of an infinite yes

And I don't know why it is

I feel it coming, I think it's real and significant

I think I think I think a little too often

That's what my therapist said

We're alone in this wilderness

Left to choke on the pills and to feed on the viruses

I think it's coming and it comes so fast

I'm hearing whispers of an infinite yes

Our bodies are dead, why you look so sad

Wintersleep

Garden Of Exile

In the garden of exile,

You can never leave,

Apparently there's a back gate,

But I just don't believe it,

It's designed in such a way,

That each path eventually,

Leads you back to where you started,

In never ending aisles,

Walking

In the garden of exile.

In the garden of exile,

The exile sleep all day,

A flock of birds crosses the sky,

And the gulls the other way,

I rest my hand,

In the cool of the shade,

There's nothing but a humming,

As it crosses the tile,

In the garden of exile.

I'm only half here,

I'm only half here.

In the garden of exile,

Our fathers built,

Statues of all the nation's heroes,

In the tops of the hills,

Everything's done before us,

Everything is will,

The future is the past,

There'll be no thinking for a while,

No thinking in the garden of exile.

I'm only half here,

I'm only half here.

Toby Martin

8/2/11

Gianluca Nespoli

Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree~
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Robert Frost

From Emerson"s "Self-Reliance"

“There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better or worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.”

A Prayer Of The Optina Elders

Prayer of the Optina Elders

O Lord, grant unto me that with Thy peace I may greet all that this day is to bring.
Grant unto me grace to surrender myself completely to Thy holy will.
In every hour of this day instruct and guide me in all things.
Whatever tidings I may receive during this day, do Thou teach me to accept tranquilly in the firm belief that Thy holy will governs all.
Govern Thou my thoughts and feelings in all I do and say. When unforseen things occur, let me not forget that all is sent by Thee.
Teach me to behave sincerely and reasonably toward everyone, that I may bring confusion and sorrow to no one. Bestow on me, O Lord, strength to endure the fatigue of the day and to bear my part in its events.
Guide Thou my will and teach me to pray, to believe, to hope, to suffer, to forgive, and to love.

The Dalai Lama's Approach To Achieving Happiness

"Happiness begins with distinguishing between spirituality and religion. To have a spiritual dimension in your life, you should appreciate your potential as a human being and recognize the importance of inner transformation through a process of mental development.

The art of happiness has many components. It begins with developing an understanding of what are the truest sources of happiness and setting your priorities in life based on the cultivation of those sources. "It involves an inner discipline, a gradual process of rooting out destructive mental states and replacing them with positive, constructive states of mind, such as kindness, tolerance, and forgiveness."

Walt Whitman

"Hours continuing long,
sore and heavy-hearted,
Hours of the duck, when I withdrew to a lonesome and unfrequented spot, seating myself,
leaning my face in my hands; Hours sleepless,
deep in the night, when I go forth,
speeding swiftly the country roads,
or through the city streets, or pacing miles and miles,
stifiling plaintive cries; Hours discouraged,
distracted -- for the one I cannot content myself without,
soon I saw him content himself without me;
Hours when I am forgotten,
(O weeks and months are passing,
but I believe I am never to forget!)
Sullen and suffering hours!
(I am ashamed -- but it is useless -- I am what I am;)
Hours of my torment --
I wonder if other men ever have the like,
out of the like feelings?
Is there even one other like me -- distracted -- his friend,
his lover, lost to him? Is he too as I am now?
Does he still rise in the morning, dejected,
thinking who is lost to him? and at night,
awaking, thinking who is lost?"

Uncovering The True Face

"Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labor to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiseling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendor of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine."

Piontius "The Enneads"

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

New Improved Stress Management

Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time because then, you won't have a leg to stand on.
A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.
Some mistakes are too fun to only make once.
Birthdays are good for you. The more you have the longer you live.
Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.
Nobody cares if you can't dance well, just get up and dance. (Unless you're Elaine from Seinfeld)
You may be only one person in the world, but you may also be the world to one person.

8/18/11

8/10/11

8/9/11

8/7/11

8/5/11

8/4/11

8/2/11

My World

Blog Archive

Hetrick-Martin Institute

TREVOR PROJECT CRISIS HELP LINE

Save A Life!

His Story Lives On

Erase Hate!

The Smile Train

Help Save The Honeybees!

From My World To Theirs

Birches

From Emerson"s "Self-Reliance"

A Prayer Of The Optina Elders

A Method Of Self-Reflection

A Rule Of Thumb

The Dalai Lama's Approach To Achieving Happiness

Walt Whitman

Uncovering The True Face

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Possibilities

New Improved Stress Management

Walt Whitman

I"m Glad You Were Here! Enjoy Life!

Parting Thoughts