heh

"... of course, if you are really expecting the unexpected then, well, then it really isn't unexpected anymore, and that leaves you vulnerable to the truly unexpected because you aren't expecting it."

I watched Bandits last night while I finished and sent The Book off to be published. Cracked me up.

By the by, THIS Iteration of The Book is SO MUCH BETTER than the Last Iteration, I can't even tell you. I mean, that last one had screen presence, I'll give it that, but when it came home to momma in print it was tired and lifeless. There's no way this one can be tired and lifeless, I'm in love with its energy, it's stronger, quieter, the strong silent type. If it does come home tired and lifeless, heh, I don't know, I'll have to throw up my hands and call Game Over.

If I have time I'll load up a preview.
I Found Time! (hmm, as though it was an object I could actually find ...) Note: there are 2 versions of this book. This is the smaller, 80-pager. There is a second, it's 140-pages and contains both photos and some pages of writing lifted off this blog from the past two years. Both register 13x11 in size and will be available for purchase in the New Year.

-------

Found this way back in the Blogger archives from March, unpublished for whatever reason:

Confession: I think I am addicted to Space Heaters.

insidemyhead, jumbled: sometimes there is alot of brightness and sometimes there are more questions than answers. sometimes i dive headfirst into The New Market and sometimes I wish we could go back a hundred years to something less Efficient and less wireless. Without detailed project reports and daily deadlines and status updates and timesheets and YouTube and even without Flickr. with less choice, less zooming. a world with just water and rocks and waves and, oh, maybe sheep. days of wool-dyeing ......... i've never found solid footing where fake is applauded, where pleasure is our god, where Body trumps Soul, where Extraordinary is reduced to a particular Formula. what survival is there for real, for humility, for awkwardness, for surprise, for truth of beauty disguised as imperfection, for Slowing Down. where are we when we can no longer tell reality from group-induced fiction. in moments of connection we look past the face of pride and social veneer and see children, perplexed, fighting against ropes, wishing for less of everything and more of something, wanting, really, just to breathe deeply, relax in love and laugh from the belly.

Seven Black Notebooks

You ever go through old writing with the aim of reading it one last time before letting it go, tearing it up, burning it evenmaybe?

I've gone through seven black notebooks tonight.

They're only each half-full, mostly written while sitting on uncomfortable stools at coffee shop windows. Scribbled in crazy messy handwriting, littered with lists and quotes. And with the same thoughts cycling around in wayward circles. Good thoughts, necessary thoughts, thoughts that came from somewhere, that meant something, were significant. But past. I've realized they've shifted, I hadn't realized they'd shifted, it startled me, I was wrapped so deep in their comforting madness. So I'm going to do what I have the habit of periodically doing and send five of the seven black notebooks on their merry way to the Paper Shredder en route to a Happy Place of Reincarnation ... as, oh, maybe Starbuck's coffee cups or something. Two I will keep for awhile longer, Because.

I loathe to lose everything to the Recycling Gods, below are bits and bobs from my pen that are edible for public consumption. So much else I will squirrel away. Questions, mysteries, guffaws, epiphanies, angerballs, tantrums, prayers, dreams, "what the fuck / holy shit / hot damns" and pages and pages of Thankfulness. I will save these, inside this container I call my body, kept in the Story of Me and only let out, maybe, FacetoFace with you.

Warning, what follows is a long post of possible drivel. So tackle it in pieces, or if you're in the mood, grab a warm drink (or a stiff drink) and make yourself comfortable. I'm drinking whisky and will be up for awhile.

Peace and Openness all.
If I go away from this digital space I will come back.
I'm looking at
some Analogue Shoring Up.
And some Dancing.
On Rooftops.
Under Stars.


*********************************

There is a space inbetween thought and actuality that can stretch out for miles. It can trip you up, suck you in, cause you to stumble. Sometimes you want to jump over it, it doesn't seem so far actually. But when you take your foot off one ledge the other ledge pulls farther away and it's all you can do to right yourself and keep from falling head over heels into a hole with no ending.

*****

Sometimes I think I'm one step out of synch with the Universe. One step too late. Hesitation has consequences. It's like someone else is living my life, one moment ahead of me, doing/being/getting what I want. I want to catch up and tell them to Stop Stealing.

*****

I've got a crazy sappy song in my ears. I have no idea who it is. Came off a CD someone burned for me, imported into iTunes as "Track 03". I have about 12 "Track 03s" in my iTunes library. Confusing as hell. Maybe I'll make an album of 33 Track 03s, like a grab bag of musical psychosis ensconced in Prime Number Perfection.

*****

Do you ever feel like your eyes just need to cry? Not because you're emotional about something, there's no reason to cry. Just that the sensation of tears welling up and running over your eyeballs feels Really Really Good.

*****

Sometimes I break into a Conversation With God that seems audible. Weird how it always happens when I'm standing at the middle of the Granville Street Bridge, staring at Aquabuses, caught in the wind. Maybe there's some sort of wacky doorway Vortex there.

*****

Every person you encounter is another soul. Another Life Being Lived. They are not a reflection of you. They are not a hologram that you're projecting on a wall. They don't perform actions because you ask them to. They don't perform actions as a result of thoughts that you have. You are not writing the story of Their life. And you're not looking at the face of Your Past or Your Future. You're looking at Someone.

*****

This moment is about the Space inbetween the words Goodbye and Hello.

There is a fan spinning in the screen of my iPod.

*****

Jonathan Franzen in The Discomfort Zone:

I was cocooned in cocoons that were themselves cocooned.

*****

Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Go.

*****

You will find it by observing reality around you. And you will find it by observing reality within you. Anything beyond that, anything that smacks just a little of violence, that carries even a suspicion of untruth, that wounds or has a trace of deception, these are ... Blah Blah Blah. Just copying from an old page I wrote, I have no patience for all of that right now. All I want to do is decorate my apartment and now here this is my pen, babbling to fill up space, babbling Nothingness to fill up 4 more lines in this freaking stupid book.

*****

I am eating an egg sandwich. "Hungry Eyes" is on the coffee shop radio. Hello 1987, feathered earrings, shaved hair, plaid stirrup pants.

"The Great arises out of small things that are honored and cared for". I don't remember who wrote that.

*****

There is tension in the midst of knowledge and action. There is a question of courage required and courage shown. There is the attraction to Other just because it is Other. There is understanding that you ask too many questions and that it is the questions that stop you, that freeze you from motion, that glue your feet. Questions that are full of asking and empty of answers.

There is Acceptance of Self, and Remembering of Self. There is something you've been told, is it really truth. There's the taking off of a coat that never really fit, it's too slow though, one stitch at a time, just painstakingly erodes away. There is the word Indoctrinated that stabs your head with feelings of Injustice. There's the question, Why This? Why not Something Else?

*****

Your wanting is wishing. And wishing has no substance because it requires no action. Wanting needs an action, needs exploration to give it Definition.

You make stories around what might be real. Instead of breathing into the story that is real. Take your head out of the Fiction and Listen. Stories become Walls that hide Truth from Experience.

*****

I'm not sitting where I want to be sitting today.

*****

It rained steady in Vancouver today, sometimes just a misting, sometimes near enough to drown you. So, logically, what a person should do on a day like today is go for a Six Hour Walk. Which is what I did. I can't feel my legs anymore and here are holes in my shoes.

*****

Frederich Buechner:

We fail a friend, or a friend fails us, and we are appalled at the capacity we all of us have for estranging the very people in our lives we need the most.

*****

There is no rainfall the same as the rain that fell before. Live in Vancouver long enough and you begin to disseminate rain the same way the eskimos disseminate snow.

*****

You go you come you feel failure and sometimes this thing that might be joy. You look in the face of every person who walks past and you wonder Do they feel this, Is there a question in their veins. You pass and you get taken up in the Idea of so many people with so many thoughts but are they really any different?

*****

Wants can be Shape Shifters that take on the form of a person. In truth, the person may not be the same as the Want at all.

*****

Our state of mind is our responsibility. Whether we experience peace or conflict is determined by the choice we make in how we see people and situations, whether we see them as worthy of love or as justifying our fear. I don't remember who said that. Maybe that cartoon guy.

*****

You sit with a word, chew it, peek around its edges and you wonder if it is the Right Word to write. Then you wonder if any word will ever be Right. There is no word better than looking into a person's eye and gathering in truth. Not even a really great word like Epiphany or Peripheral or Farcical.

*****

Someone in the coffee shop just asked me what I was writing in this here book and I told them, it's The Story of My Mental Chaos.

knowing

It's harder to admit than you think it is:

I don't know.
I can't know.
I won't know.

There is so much talk. Kelly and I, we talk. We were roommates two times over, we learned to talk. So we talk. And then we sit in silence for two hours. Then we talk some more. It's why I came here, I'm realizing slow. Phoning is only one half communication. Messaging is only one twelfth. Who are we if we're not present with each other.

Kelly runs down wisdom, she inquires, it is her nature and she has nurtured her nature. I listen. I return back what is given, only different. As i am here, now, there are questions to ask, not of anyone but myself. There is learning. About release and opening, the cessation of expectation, of judgement, about trust.

Happiness is not in happiness it's in the unending process.

We talked today about those moments when we forget. About everything else except what we are doing. Kelly finds this when she leads meditation. This is her place. She shares the meditation, the body awareness, the breath, she is there, present, engaged. It is the transference of something inside to people outside, it fills the space of any distraction.

For me, it is photography. It's my meditation. My camera is more than a box, a machine. It is my eyes, my ears. And when I engage someone or some thing, it's like a co-meditation. In that moment, when I have the honor, this is my place, where else would i be, there, not lost in myself, awake, getting the chance to see into More. I couldn't fully explain that until today. I could see it, in its parts. And I could feel it but it mostly felt like happiness to me.

There are so so many things to learn. But knowing this, it takes one part of the future and turns striving into being. Breathing into what God sees. I am here to run down beauty. To share what I see as truth, in you, or in a scrappy patch of weed on the cobblestone. However that will look, i can't know. But so much else in life is a question that I don't always know what to do with and knowing this is something.

-----

i lay on the grass in the sun again today. this was the world i saw.


peace all, throw your arms to the wind, remember.
t.

OTR

Ohio of course means Over the Rhine. Below are lyrics to an Over the Rhine song I've had on repeat for years. Don't go thinking it's sad, it's a beautiful song of life and recognition. Oh and a video of Drunkard's Prayer. I've seen them twice, this husband and wife team, they are like a bullet of emotion live.

-----

We're turning down the machinery over here and hauling out the books. Getting some sunshine, drinking some coffee, not sure how much public writing i'll do, will let the spirit move. the more nights i go without good sleep the more writing there will be. so here's to silence on my part :) peace all, be good, or bad.

-----

Nobody Number One

I'm afraid I've lost the piece of me
I need the most you see
This puzzle is really just about the need
To be somebody
I'm afraid I'm not all that you see
All along the coast of me
I'm camouflaged, a desert mirage
A nobody

But you came so close and I assumed
You were looking
For the piece of yourself that's lost
It is the hiding place inside everybody
And though we love to numb the pain
We come to learn that it's in vain
Pain is our mother
She makes us recognize each other

C'mon now child don't cry
C'mon now child don't cry
Let's give it one more try
C'mon now child don't cry

Sometimes I feel so all alone
Here in this city I call my home
They say, Hey, you're one of us
Funny, I should feel so anonymous
But I'm drawn to you
And that still small voice is talking too
And that's the voice that so seldom can get through

You can't put no bandaid on this cancer
Like a twenty-dollar bill
For a topless dancer
You need questions
Forget about the answers
Do you really wanna die this way

That's the trouble with you and me
We always hit the bottom before we get set free
I'm so far down
I'm beginning to breathe

C'mon now child don't cry
C'mon now child don't cry
Let's give it one more try
C'mon now child don't cry
Cuz we're just too young to die

-----

101

it's 130 AM in Cincinnati and this girl is still wide awake. It might have something to do with the syrup glazed pear I ingested an hour and a bit ago. Or the fact that I've never been very good am actually horrible in fact with time changes.

I didn't sleep much last night, or the night before. Somehow you'd think a body would be tired enough by now to give in. phooey.

tonight was family to meet and an outdoor fire to sit around and a long long conversation about politics. i knew it would be fascinating to be south of the border as an observer round about now. i forgot that it would also make me the resident "foreign" expert and that thus i would be called upon frequently to share my views on what us outsiders think about america and of course about health care and all the socialist things we engage in up north. good times. i can say almost anything and sound authoritative. oh the power to orate unchecked, its going to my head.

today also there was quite the hullabaloo as the 89-year old woman who lives across the street was arrested. in her nightgown. why you might wonder would an 89-year old woman be arrested? because for ages the kids who live next door have been throwing a football into her yard. and after ages of telling them to not be in her yard she finally had enough and took their ball inside and refused to give it back. let's all cheer her right now for her spunk. and then let's all be shocked and appalled at the angry parent next door who instead of teaching those kids of his to have some respect, or engaging in a BasicCommunity101 neighbourly conversation, called the police and pressed charges. for theft. of the ball. and the cops actually arrested her. whatthe.

and of course another neighbour captured the arrest on HD video and so then the news crew showed up to interview the later released 89-year old woman and this was the breaking news story on the 11 o'clock broadcast.

crazytown.

-----

something weird has been going on with me the last few months. i meet someone new and literally like five minutes after i meet them, i look at their face and it's like i've known them all my life.

that might not sound like much of anything but it's strange. like people are becoming almost instantly familiar. i don't know if it's that i've learned to see differently, maybe the part of me that knows that we're all connected is expressing itself visually.

je ne sais pas. except that everytime it happens, the realization is accompanied by this feeling of knowingness that makes me smile.

-----

say hello to kelly, listening to her friend Nate sing us some tunes ...

where i am

Kelly had to go somewhere far away to buy a water filter for their shower. So I thought I better get my work done before the weekend which seems full up with bluegrass, city touring, family visits and even a lastminute photoshoot. Yes, I brought work with me. Of the photoediting / formatting variety. 12 headshots being blown up to gargantuan size onto canvas. With wrapping and bleeds when the original photos did not take into account wrapping and bleeds which leaves me in a notsosmall conundrum.

So I sit at a coffee shop. There's no such thing as free wireless, which is better actually, the InterWeb is a timesucker, usually work takes twiceaslong when the InterWeb is turned on. And twiceaslong when you're supposed to be on holiday feels like fivetimesaslong.

This morning there was yoga and some breathing meditation and I felt my body slowly begin to ground itself on different soil. But not my mind yet. It wants to go backwards. And forwards. Another day and maybe I'll have it reigned into the hereandnow. Which feels necessary, is, to be hereandnow right now. So that I can be thereandnow when i get home. Not thereandbackwardsandforwardsandallupinsidemyhead.

---

right so that minute of writing didn't last very long before the buzzer rang and I had to go.

It's later. After dinner and walking and talking and watching, I'm sitting in what is dubbed the Serenity Room here in Cincinnati. My little temporary space. Candle is lit, there is the faint smell of leftover incense, crickets chirping outside the window, neighbours sitting on the porch across the street chatting. I'm curled up in an armchair, it's not quite my bedtime though the natives are right tuckered out. Early sleepers they are. I got a good three hours in me yet according to Greenwich mean time and my westcoast bodyclock.

I'm realizing that while I might have been right chatty this morning I only have words in me right now. So only words are what i'll leave with before i grab a book and try to lull myself to sleep. Morning starts on Eastern time with Rick-made omelettes that have apparently achieved legendary status. Bodyclock or no, I oughta be a good guest and not sleep til for ever.

-----
so words, now:

away. dark. silence. candle. left. back. where. yoga. warriorpose. natural. breathing. sensation. coffee. mind. thinking. thinking. new. what. alittlebit. home. open. breathing. simple. hands. unclench. control. letgo. photos. pause. know. obama. debate. joe. wtf. america. other. different. sit. friend. heart. talking. talking. talking. guffaw. light. skip. shakeitdown. well. love. god. restoration. connect. home. timing. try. process. unending. quiet.

-----

The plane taking off from Chicago:

slowing down

i like me a rainy holiday day when i can wake up slow and stay slow.
when i can light the candles at noon because it's sort of smudgy outside.
when the rain settles in and drizzles foggily, like a cloud just decided it needed a rest and descended down to the ground. **

maybe it's because it gives the quiet version of me permission to just be. to dwell. without social pressure, without urgent deadlines, without the sun making me feel like anything other than movement would be a grave waste of life.

-----

i have thank-ful dinner with friends tonight after thank-ful dinner with family last night. i like thank-ful dinners.

-----

i leave early wednesday morning for Ohio. the machine is coming with me, it's not an anti-machine sort of trip because i want to write and most definitely shoot. but i just talked to kelly. twelve days of intention are what we've planned. i can't think of any better way to spend the next twelve days than with people i love, waking with purpose, living together in routine, decision, conversation, vision, alertness. and laughing just a little or a lot along the way. which is inevitable. i wish you could come.

the bonus of it, kelly's neighbours have their front lawn plastered in republican propaganda. which is no doubt just a small sampling of the devotion that abounds in the state. hello, crazy fun people watching and photoshooting :).

-----

** i can't claim credit for this visual. Craig Raine in his oddly beautiful poem "A Martian Sends a Postcard Home" writes:

Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on the ground:

then the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.

-----

i went digging through my email archives looking for something. i didn't find it, but i did find this list that i wrote way back on January 5, 2006 just before i took off for Berlin. It was in response to the fill-in-the-blank sentence, "I believe _____."

I don't know if I'd write the same list today. Or maybe I would, with a little more levity. Life is by and large less full of angst, less full of "Who Am I" than 3 years ago. It would seem I'm settling into myself. Which I have to say, feels pretty damn good.


I believe all everyone really wants is to be Known and that we spend our lives trying to find people to really listen.
I believe Beauty can overwhelm the worst sort of Bad.
I believe it's all about Me and has nothing at all to do with Me.
I believe computers can kill you if you don't put them in their place.
I believe in touch.
I believe reading a book is basically having a conversation with the person who wrote it.
I believe trust is one of the hardest things to get back.
I believe I'm almost always Holding Myself Back.
I believe the world is run by Business not Government.
I believe in the separation of Church and State.
I believe nothing is more powerful than Grace, accepting Grace and delivering Grace, except of course Love, which Grace is part of.
I believe I have the ability to overcome what I'm addicted to.
I believe everyone should have the chance to sleep under a velvet blanket.
I believe the Bible is more poetic than we were taught.
I believe in patterns.
I believe music is spiritual and that's why it can kick us in the middle or make us believe in Things even if just for a second.
I believe a part of me will always elude me.
I believe there will always be a space between 2 people.
I believe the Mennonites hurt us by not letting us dance.
I believe we can pray with our breath.
I believe in sleeping outside under the stars.
I believe I am too often afraid.
I believe in pictures.
I believe in going barefoot.
I believe I am unshockable.
I believe alcohol is socially important.
I believe nothing will save me except letting everything go.
I believe in a 4-day work week.
I believe in John Stewart.
I believe George Bush is a really bad president.
I believe that I know little of real pain and suffering.
I believe in learning to be ok with mystery.
I believe in rhythmn.
I believe in circles.
I believe maturity is being responsible to who you know you are.
I believe in Crazy and that nothing is Normal when you really look closely.
I believe I need to think about myself less.
I believe I mostly live in the Future which means I mostly live in a world that's not Real.
I believe we rarely see people without the filter of Me.
I believe in silliness.
I believe in good food.
I believe that good food eaten in the company of good people is the ground that grows good relationship.
I believe loneliness is inevitable.
I believe hope is sometimes all that keeps me sane.
I believe in committing to people.
I believe in bridges.
I believe all people are beautiful, all people have the capacity for light. every. single. one.

-----

Peace all. i'll be back with tales from the road.

-----

at home, right now:

breathing

this dark room is full of twenty-one candles.
there are streaks of leftover raindrops on my open windows, the lace curtains are breathing in and out.
tires go past on wet pavement, they sound like waves coming in at an alarming speed.

a gust of wind just blew out two, so nineteen candles, pardon me.
this is what I always do, I open the windows and wrap myself up in blankets to ward off the cold.
life is simply better with air.
I wish you could see the curtains moving, it's like a mysterious sensual sort of dance.

-----

a long time ago on a blog that doesn't exist anymore i wrote, "i am walls with no holes and holes with no patches".

i don't know why i thought of that today, except that it seems I've been having conversations with people about their walls lately. walls that are blocking other people out unconsciously or consciously, making it hard to get close to something real. walls that are often covered in invisibility cloaks. except the good thing is that the cloaks keep sliding around revealing them in bits and pieces despite Control's efforts otherwise.

the thing is that no one really wants to live behind walls. everyone peaks out now and again, purposely pushes the cloak aside a little, sees something trustworthy and maybe cuts a hole, tears off another inch of the covering.

i want to shout, take it all off! loud enough that even i can hear it.

the safest place in the world is in truth and in love. even in messy, exploratory, still moving and shifting truth and love.

a few years ago a friend shared a vision she had of me. in her vision i was a russian matryoshka doll, you know how they have their multiple layers of outer shells, all of them hollow, and each one, when opened, revealing another inner doll. until you get to the last tiny doll. it looks vulnerable when you finally let it out from under the covers, but unlike all of the outer layers, it's the only one that is rock solid, not hollow, strong, unbreakable.

i thought that was beautiful.
and true for everyone.
growth, change, release, quieting, deciding, risking, revealing. peeling back the hollow patterns, standing solid, maybe in what feels like weakness at first because exposure to the elements takes some getting used to, but standing solid regardless, known, knowing.

like i said, life is simply better with air.

-----

the video below was posted on Facebook and it made me smile. so great. bon iver and lykke li. together! and au naturale! how can that not be worthy of smiling.

peace all.

HOME

Currently repeating itself on my new iPhone: Radiohead's "Reckoner".

-----

Well, the magazine has finally hit the shelves and you can find yours truly smiling back at you on Page 46 :)

If you don't know the backstory, in late spring I was asked by an editor at HOME magazine if I would be open to having my little space published in their September '08 issue. Something about a "How-To" page or something. Well now tell me who says No to their Labour of Love and Therapy appearing in a national U.S publication. Right.

So, here it is. One modest little page, a photo of my bookshelf, a photo of me, a few words. But how fun is that, sheesh. See below for pics!

What makes me smile about all of this is that I made no move to make it happen. And in that way, it stands as an affirmation that if you do something you love, if you put You into something that you do, that Thing, whatever it is, takes on its own life, runs out there into the world and speaks for you in ways you might not have imagined.

I designed my home during a time when I fairly desperately needed comfort and beauty surrounding me. Last fall was an ironic mixture of freedom and fear, of multiple losses, of boundlessness and yet paralyzation. I spent far too many unemployed days sitting in my newly rented, tiny, empty, furnitureless apartment, staring at the walls fighting to let go of the past and wondering What Comes Next. Until finally one day I got up off my ass, went to Chapters, bought an armload of Interior Design magazines and got to work. It took a month, but it was an invigorating month of scheming and planning and hunting through thrift stores, trying to somehow create Beauty from Ashes, to find what seemed to be missing. And when I was finally done I poured myself a glass of wine, sat on the sofa, stared at it all and felt a little like God must have when he said "It is Good."

It was good, I had a home, and now, instead of seeing only what was gone, I saw Beauty when I looked around me, Beauty that was birthed through hard work and ingenuity. And as I sat there I realized that the part of me that hungers for Goodness, for Balance, for Peace, the part of me that runs after what is Beautiful had been screaming itself silly trying to get my attention. What came back in the process of designing my home was creative strength, a sense of self, of determination.

So, question/answer. Should a house be your Identity, should you hunt down elusive perfection in your home, turn it into an altar of consumerism? No, read Gibran below for a beautiful description of what I believe about that. However, can you find yourself in the design process, say essential things about You in paint colours and bookshelves, put Who You Are into a physical space and Love what is there? Hell, yes. Absolutely Yes. We are Creative Beings and at our essence we are meant to discover and share this world, to claim what is beautiful in ourselves and in the work of our hands and when we know this, when we own this, to put it out there in whatever form it asks to be expressed.

And then to let it be, to loosen our grasp and enjoy watching it run about and play of its own accord :)

-----

Here's Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet talking about "Houses"

And tell me, what have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors? Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power? Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind? Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain? Tell me, have you these in your houses? Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master?

Aye, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires. Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron. It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh. It makes mock of your sound senses, and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels. Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.

But you, children of space, you restless in rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed. Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast. It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye. You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down. You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living. And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.

For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.

-----