“She sweeps with many-colored Brooms,” – Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
She sweeps with many-colored brooms,
And leaves the shreds behind;
Oh, housewife in the evening west,
Come back, and dust the pond!
You dropped a purple ravelling in,
You dropped an amber thread;
And now you’ve littered all the East
With duds of emerald!
And still she plies her spotted brooms,
And still the aprons fly,
Till brooms fade softly into stars –
And then I come away.
Excerpt from Moonlight Sonata-Yannis Ritsos
We’ll pause for a little at the top of St. Nicholas’ marble steps,
and afterward you’ll descend and I will turn back,
having on my left side the warmth from a casual touch of your jacket
and some squares of light, too, from small neighborhood windows
and this pure white mist from the moon, like a great procession of silver swans –
and I do not fear this manifestation, for at another time
on many spring evenings I talked with God who appeared to me
clothed in the haze and glory of such a moonlight –
and many young men, more handsome even than you, I sacrificed to him –
I dissolved, so white, so unapproachable, amid my white flame, in the whiteness of moonlight,
burnt up by men’s vocarious eyes and the tentative rapture of youths,
besieged by splendid bronzed bodies,
strong limbs exercising at the pool, with oars, on the track, at soccer (I pretended not to see them),
foreheads, lips and throats, knees, fingers and eyes,
chests and arms and things (and truly I did not see them)
– you know, sometimes, when you’re entranced, you forget what entranced you, the entrancement alone is enough –
my God, what star-bright eyes, and I was lifted up to an apotheosis of disavowed stars
because, besieged thus from without and from within,
no other road was left me save only the way up or the way down. – No, it is not enough.
Let me come with you.
* an excerpt from Odysseas Elytis poem
”When the first rain drop fell the summer died” – 1933
{When the first rain drop fell
the summer died
The words that starlights had born
were saturated
all the words
that had as their only destination
You!}
* a poem “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou
{You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread 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
I rise}
“But my darling, there’s no such thing as the light at the end of the tunnel, you must realize that you are the light.” – Anonymous
“Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell.” – Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
“I woke with this marble head in my hands; /
It exhausts my elbows and I don’t know where to put it down.”
– George Seferis, from “Mythistorema” (1935)
The wonderful situation
where animals meet people
unexpectedly
on the road
during a journey
When we turn down the car radio
when we turn down the voices in our heads
We might listen to the message they bring
The plural -Poem by Kiki Dimoula
Love,
a noun – alias substantive,
indeed substantive,
in the singular form,
neither feminine nor masculine,
etymologically defenceless.
In the plural form
defenceless loves.
Fear,
a common noun,
at first in the singular form
and then in the plural:
fears.
Fears
of everything from now on.
Memory,
the first name of sorrows,
in the singular form,
only in the singular
and with no inflection.
The memory, the memory, the memory.
Night,
a common noun,
etymologically feminine,
in the singular form.
In the plural form
the nights.
The nights from now on.
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” – Helen Keller (1880-1968)
a Russian poem by Anna Akhmatova
“Like a White Stone”
”Like a white stone deep in a draw-well lying,
As hard and clear, a memory lies in me.
I cannot strive nor have I heart for striving:
It is such pain and yet such ecstasy.
It seems to me that someone looking closely
Into my eyes would see it, patent, pale.
And, seeing, would grow sadder and more thoughtful
Than one who listens to a bitter tale.
The ancient gods changed men to things, but left them
A consciousness that smoldered endlessly,
That splendid sorrows might endure forever.
And you are changed into a memory. ”
“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
― Sarah Williams, Twilight Hours: A Legacy Of Verse 1868
“I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.”
– Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
– Anais Nin (1903-1977)
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” – Carl Jung (1875-1961)
An excerpt from The Monogram-Odysseus Elytis
This is how I speak of you and of me
Because I love you and I know
How to enter love like a Full Moon,
From all sides, because of your small foot
in the endless sheets
Because I know how to pluck daisies—and have the strength
To blow my breath on you and lead you half asleep
Through moonlit passages and hidden
sea grottoes
Through hypnotized trees with silver-colored spiders.
“Keys open doors to the secret places in the most ancient parts of our mind and heart.”
– Shannon L. Alder
“Earth laughs in flowers.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
“A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period —
When March is scarcely here”
– Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
“I want the light and the wheat of your beloved hands to pass their freshness over me one more time” – Pablo Neruda, “Your Hands” (1952)
“Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care, but for another gives its ease, and builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.”
– William Blake (1757-1827)
* a poem by Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
~Dreams~
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow~
“Art does not reproduce the visible;
rather, it makes visible.”
– Paul Klee (1879-1940)
“The living moment is everything.”
– D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930)
State of mind
If you think you are beaten, you are;
If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you’d like to win, but you think you can’t,
It is almost a cinch you won’t.
If you think you’ll lose, you’ve lost;
For out in this world we find
Success begins with a person’s will
It’s all in the state of mind.
If you think you’re outclassed, you are;
You’ve got to think high to rise.
You’ve got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win the prize.
Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man;
But sooner or later the person who wins
Is the one who thinks he can
A legendary piece of reflective poetry written by Walter D. Wintle, a poet who lived in the late 19th and early 20th century. Little to nothing is known about any details of his life.
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.
Art is knowing which ones to keep.”
– Scott Adams (1957-)
Spirit is everywhere.
No temple, statue,
idol, idea, principle,
method or person
has ”copyrights” for
Spirit
It is available for everyone,
every time, anywhere.
In the simple things,
in a simple thank you
Feel the summer…
And all its small details
that add up to its existence
In life. In your Life.
Other than think the summer
Feel… the summer
The Mystic Egg
”My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare”.
* My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130)~
William Shakespeare – 1564-1616
Excerpt from Axion Esti -Odysseus Elytis
PRAISED BE the wooden table
the blond wine with the sun’s stain
the water doodling across the ceiling
the philodendron on duty in the corner
The walls hand in hand with the waves
a foot that gathered wisdom in the sand
a cicada that convinced a thousand others
conscience radiant like a summer
THE ISLANDS with all their minium and lampblack
the islands with the vertebra of some Zeus
the islands with their boat yards so deserted
the islands with their drinkable blue volcanoes
Facing the Meltemi with jib close-hauled
Riding the southwester on a reach
the full length of them covered with foam
with dark blue pebbles and heliotropes
Sifnos, Amorgos, Alonnisos,
Thasos, Ithaki, Santorini,
Kos, Ios, Sikinos
“The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.” – Julia Child (1912-2004)
“Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”
– Lao Tzu (601-531 BC)
“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”
– J.M. Barrie, “Peter Pan” (1911)
“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.”
– Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)
“Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.” – E.Y. Harburg (1896-1981), for the song “Over the Rainbow” in “The Wizard of Oz”
“Skateboarding teaches you how to take a fall properly.
It’s a skill of survival.”
– Bam Margera
Kiss
Kiss more
Kiss even more
Your lips are precious
The Mystic Egg
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” – Lao Tzu
“Listen–are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”
– Mary Oliver (1935-2019)
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Pablo Neruda
-I Love You Without Knowing How
“But man is not made for defeat.
A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
– Ernest Hemingway, “The Old Man and the Sea” (1952)
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
– Albert Einstein
“Every child begins the world again.” – Henry David Thoreau
When you are faced with a dilemma, see if there is an urgent feeling within you that demands a decision.
Never make a decision from that place.
Take a breath.
Look ahead.
Look deeper and further into the horizon.
Who knows what lies ahead?
Smile.
Take small dance steps at your own natural pace and rhythm.
As you take small steps of relief, you may be surprised to find that you do not need to choose anything at all.
The Mystic Egg
“The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.”
– Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)
As Much As You Can-Poem by Constantine Cavafy
And if you cannot make your life the way you’d want it
try this at least, as much it’s in your power:
do not debase it in too much association
with crowds, in too much wandering and talking.
Do not debase your life by dragging it along,
often going around to expose it
to gatherings’ and intercourse’s daily folly,
till it becomes a stranger, an encumbrance.
“This is love:
to fly toward a secret sky,
to cause a hundred veils
to fall each moment.
First to let go of life.
Finally, to take a step without feet.”
* a Rumi’s poetry quote
“Love is the poetry of the senses.”
– Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850)
* a poem by Nicholas Vachel Lindsay {November 10, 1879 – December 5, 1931}
A Sense of Humor
NO man should stand before the moon
To make sweet song thereon,
With dandified importance,
His sense of humor gone.
Nay, let us don the motley cap,
The jester’s chastened mien,
If we would woo that looking-glass
And see what should be seen.
O mirror on fair Heaven’s wall,
We find there what we bring.
So, let us smile in honest part
And deck our souls and sing.
Yea, by the chastened jest alone
Will ghosts and terrors pass,
And fays, or suchlike friendly things,
Throw kisses through the glass.
Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”
– Rumi (1207-1273)
“Happy is the man, I thought, who, before dying, has the good fortune to sail the Aegean sea.”
– Nikos Kazantzakis, “Zorba the Greek” (1946)
~A walk~
My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has inner light, even from a distance-
and charges us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave…
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.
* a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 – 1926)
The eye
should learn
to listen
before it looks
*a saying by Robert Frank (1924 -2019), a Swiss photographer
But the sound of the wave
crashing against the rock
reach your ears and are translated into the
the tingling sensations on parts of your body,
The delicate taste of sea salt
on your lips and tongue
The widening of the eyes to make room
for the temporary event to be absorbed inside
And the momentary absence of speaking voices,
inside the head
The feeling of the power of nature
crashing against the chest and the human heart,
Oh yes…
This moment could be worth more
Than a forced, conditioned meditation
Than a therapy session to release pain
Than a forced prayer, made out of despair
Than a coffee with a friend to share the day
Than a trip abroad to an unknown country
Or even more
Than a kiss with a dream partner
The Mystic Egg
*a poem by Sara Teasdale
Peace flows into me
As the tide to the pool by the shore;
It is mine forevermore,
It ebbs not back like the sea …
‘Peace’. Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
Hope was but a timid friend;
* a poem by Emily Brontë (1818-1848)
Hope
She sat without the grated den,
Watching how my fate would tend,
Even as selfish-hearted men.
She was cruel in her fear;
Through the bars one dreary day,
I looked out to see her there,
And she turned her face away!
Like a false guard, false watch keeping,
Still, in strife, she whispered peace;
She would sing while I was weeping;
If I listened, she would cease …
“Shadow work is the path of the heart warrior.”
— C.G. Jung
“Now be silent.
Let the One who creates the words speak.
He made the door.
He made the lock.
He also made the key.”
*a Rumi quoted poerty
Ah, come with me!
I’ll blow you that wonderful bubble, the moon,
That floats forever and a day;
I’ll sing you the jacinth song
Of the probable stars;
I will attempt the unstartled steppes of dream,
Until I find the Only Flower,
Which shall keep (I think) your little heart
While the moon comes out of the sea.
a quote from the poem by E. E. Cummings (1894 – 1962) -“You Are Tired”
”In the Bleak Midwinter”
~
”In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ …” Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
“Electricity” *a poem by Lola Ridge (1873 – 1941)
⚡️
Out of fiery contacts…
Rushing auras of steel
Touching and whirled apart…
Out of the charged phallases
Of iron leaping
Female and male,
Complete, indivisible, one,
Fused into light.
And when the roots of the flower
Grow strong, after you have tended them
The wall will crumble
And all that will be
Is the pink flower
And then you will bow to the wall
To make room for the flower to be
And then you will bow to the flower
For its strength to survive
And then you bow to life
To know better than your mind
*Psychic walls that are
built up within us
at certain times
to protect from trauma
are in fact the ones that
separate us from life
There is a phrase that someone said:
“You have to love your defences
before you break them”.
I would say:
“You have to understand
your defences before you can
transform them”.
The Mystic Egg
“Colors are the smiles of nature.”
– Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)
* a poem by Emily Dickinson (1830–86)
“Adrift! A little boat adrift!”
ADRIFT! A little boat adrift!
And night is coming down!
Will no one guide a little boat
Unto the nearest town?
So sailors say, on yesterday,
Just as the dusk was brown,
One little boat gave up its strife,
And gurgled down and down.
But angels say, on yesterday,
Just as the dawn was red,
One little boat o’erspent with gales
Retrimmed its masts, redecked its sails
Exultant, onward sped!
”I cannot tell you how it was,
But this I know: it came to pass
Upon a bright and sunny day
When May was young; ah, pleasant May!
As yet the poppies were not born
Between the blades of tender corn;
The last egg had not hatched as yet,
Nor any bird foregone its mate.
I cannot tell you what it was,
But this I know: it did but pass.
It passed away with sunny May,
Like all sweet things it passed away,
And left me old, and cold, and gray”
‘May’ by Christina Rossetti
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
‘To a Skylark’
~The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven,
In the broad day-light
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight …~
* a poem by George Seferis [Inside the sea caves, 1940]
Inside the sea caves
there is thirst, there is love
there is an ecstasy,
all is hard, like shells
you can hold them in the palm of your hand.
Inside the sea caves
I looked you in the eyes for days
and I did not know you nor did you know me.
“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
– Robert Frost (1874-1963)
