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WHERE MY BOOKS GO
the baby asked its mother. She answered half crying, half laughing, and clasping the baby to her breast, -- "You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling. You were in the dolls of my childhood's games; and when with clay I made the image of my god every morning, I made and unmade you then. You were enshrined with our household deity, in his worship I worshipped you. In all my hopes and my loves, in my life, in the life of my mother you have lived. In the lap of the deathless Spirit who rules our home you have been nursed for ages. When in girlhood my heart was opening its petals, you hovered as a fragrance about it. Your tender softness bloomed in my youthful limbs, like a glow in the sky before the sunrise. Heaven's first darling, twin-born with the morning light, you have floated down the stream of the world's life, and at last you have stranded on my heart. As I gaze on your face, mystery overwhelms me; you who belong to all have become mine. For fear of losing you I hold you tight to my breast. What magic has snared the world's treasure in these slender arms of mine?" - Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)
In search of the desert witch, the shaman-woman,
Forget the archetypes, forget the dark and petrified profile,
Do not examine the clouds
Packed on the horizon, violet and green,
For her image, do not chase
The ready-made abstraction, do not gaze at symbols,
As long as you want her without a face, without a scent
Or voice, as long as she does not squat
To piss or scratch herself, as long
As long as she does not snore under her blanket
Or grin when she early in the morning
Grabs the stone-cold millstone,
As long as she does not have her own peculiar face,
With light bags under her eyes or with a stripe
Topaz shining in the black
Of an eye, as long as she does not limp
As long as you try to simplify her meaning
As long as she only symbolizes power
She is kept helpless and conventional
Her true power fled back, further into the past in,
We cannot touch or name her
And silenced by those who need her
The Use of the Seven Swords through the Heart.
It was convinced, however, that its destiny was to cross this desert, and yet there was no way. Now a hidden voice, coming from the desert itself, whispered: "The Wind crosses the desert, and so can the stream."
The stream objected that it was dashing itself against the sand, and only getting absorbed: that the wind could fly, and this was why it could cross a desert.
"By hurtling in your own accustomed way you cannot get across. You will either disappear or become a marsh. You must allow the wind to carry you over, to your destination."
"But how could this happen?"
"By allowing yourself to be absorbed in the wind."
This idea was not acceptable to the stream. After all, it had never been absorbed before. It did not want to lose its individuality. And, once having lost it, how was one to know that it could ever be regained?
"The wind," said the sand, "performs this function. It takes up water, carries it over the desert, and then lets it fall again. Falling as rain, the water again becomes a river."
"How can I know that this is true?"
"It is so, and if you do not believe it, you cannot become more than a quagmire, and even that could take many, many years; and it certainly is not the same as a stream."
"But can I not remain the same stream that I am today?"
"You cannot in either case remain so," the whisper said. "Your essential part is carried away and forms a stream again. You are called what you are even today because you do not know which part of you is the essential one."
A Sufi Story by Idries Shah
Little Swan flew through the Dreamtime, looking for the future. She rested for a moment in the coolness of the pond, looking for a way to find the entry point to the future. This was a moment of confusion for Swan, as she knew that she had happened into the Dreamtime by accident. This was her first flight alone and she was a bit concerned by the Dreamtime landscape. 🦢 As Swan looked high above Sacred Mountain, she saw the biggest swirling black hole she had ever seen. Dragonfly came flying by, and Swan stopped him to ask about the black hole. Dragonfly said, "Swan, that is the doorway to the other planes of imagination. I have been guardian of the illusion for many, many moons. If you want to enter there, you would have to ask permission and earn the right." 🦢 Swan was not so sure that she wanted to enter the black hole. She asked Dragonfly what was necessary for her to earn entry. Dragonfly replied, "You must be willing to accept whatever the future holds as it is presented, without trying to change Great Spirit's plan." Swan looked at her ugly little duckling body and then answered, "I will be happy to abide by Great Spirit's plan. I won't fight the currents of the black hole. I will surrender to the flow of the spiral and trust what I am shown." Dragonfly was very happy with Swan's answer and began to spin the magic to break the pond's illusion. Suddenly Swan was engulfed by a whirlpool in the center of the pond. 🦢 Swan reappeared many days later, but now she was graceful and white and long-necked. Dragonfly was stunned! "Swan, what happened to you!" he exclaimed. Swan smiled and said, "Dragonfly, I learned to surrender my body to the power of Great Spirit and was taken to where the future lives. I saw many wonders high on Sacred Mountain and because of my faith and my acceptance I have been changed. I have learned to accept the state of grace."
WIND-CHILD
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El Viaje Definitivo - The Definitive Journey
. . . and I will leave. But the birds will stay, singing,
and my garden will stay, with its green tree,
with its water well.
Many afternoons the skies will be blue and placid,
and the bells in the belfry will chime,
as they are chiming this very afternoon.
The people who have loved me will pass away,
and the town will burst anew every year.
But my spirit will always wander nostalgic
in the same recondite corner of my flowery garden.
- Juan Ramon Jimenez – translated by Carlos Casteneda in his book Journey to Ixtlan
High and large and dark the sea rose from the horizon, against the white beach. Norderney..'Sei mir gegrüsst, du Ewiges Meer.'
Why is this so beautiful, so beautiful, that I have to think about it almost every day and it brings tears to my eyes almost every day? I try to fathom it by repeating it, but it doesn't want to be fathomed that way and it flees from me. Small and alone I stand before the sea, before the sky.. I surrender to them, they take me from myself. Sea and sky take over from me. Over the blue waves my eyes anchor deep to the horizon, I am as wide as I see, I reach as far as I meditate.. my indefinable musings are lost in my limitless being -, so compact, small clouds settle into thin mists ..
- Carry van Bruggen, Dutch Author, 1881-1932, excerpt from Eva © Querido publishers
