Friday, November 25, 2016

Long did I love you by Khalil Gibran

Music:

Long did I love you
Khalil Gibran

Excerpt:The Last Watch-The Forerunner

At high tide of night, when the first breath of dawn came
upon the wind, the forerunner, he who calls himself echo
to a voice yet unheard, left his bed-chamber and ascended
to the roof of his house. Long he stood and looked down
upon the slumbering city. Then he raised his head, and
even as if the sleepless spirits of all those asleep
had gathered around him, he opened his lips and spoke,
and he said:


"My friends and neighbors and you who daily pass my gate,
I would speak to you in your sleep, and in the valley
of your dreams I would walk naked and unrestrained;
for heedless are your waking hours and deaf are your
sound-burdened ears".

Long did I love you and overmuch.


I love the one among you as though he were all, and all
as if you were one. And in the spring of my heart I sang
in your gardens, and in the summer of my heart I watched
at your threshing-floors.

Yea, I loved you all, the giant and the pygmy, the leper
and the anointed, and him who gropes in the dark even as
him who dances his days upon the mountains.

You, the strong, have I loved, though the marks of your
iron hoofs are yet upon my flesh; and you the weak, though
you have drained my faith and wasted my patience.


You the rich have I loved, while bitter was your honey to my mouth;
and you the poor, though you knew my empty-handed shame.

You the poet with the bowed lute and blind fingers, you
have I loved in self-indulgence; and you the scholar ever
gathering rotted shrouds in potters' fields.

You the priest I have loved, who sit in the silences of
yesterday questioning the fate of my tomorrow; and you
the worshippers of gods the images of your own desires.

You the thirsting woman whose cup is ever full, I have
loved in understanding; and you the woman of restless
nights, you too I have loved in pity.


You the talkative have I loved, saying, 'Life hath much
to say'; and you the dumb have I loved, whispering to myself,
'Says he not in silence that which I fain would hear in words?'

And you the judge and the critic, I have loved also; yet
when you have seen me crucified, you said, 'He bleeds
rhythmically, and the pattern his blood makes upon his
white skin is beautiful to behold.'

Yea, I have loved you all, the young and the old,
the trembling reed and the oak.


But, alas, it was the over-abundance of my heart that
turned you from me. You would drink love from a cup,
but not from a surging river. You would hear love's
faint murmur, but when love shouts you would muffle your ears.

And because I have loved you all you have said,
'Too soft and yielding is his heart, and too undiscerning
is his path. It is the love of a needy one, who picks
crumbs even as he sits at kingly feasts. And it is
the love of a weakling, for the strong loves only the strong.'


And because I have loved you overmuch you have said,
'It is but the love of a blind man who knows not
the beauty of one nor the ugliness of another.
And it is the love of the tasteless who drinks vinegar
even as wine. And it is the love of the impertinent
and the overweening, for what stranger could be our
mother and father and sister and brother?'

This you have said, and more. For often in the market-place
you pointed your fingers at me and said mockingly, 'There goes
the ageless one, the man without seasons, who at the noon
hour plays games with our children and at eventide sits with
our elders and assumes wisdom and understanding.'


And I said, 'I will love them more. Aye, even more. I will
hide my love with seeming to hate, and disguise my tenderness
as bitterness. I will wear an iron mask, and only when armed
and mailed shall I seek them.'

Then I laid a heavy hand upon your bruises, and like a tempest
in the night I thundered in your ears.

From the housetop I proclaimed you hypocrites, Pharisees,
tricksters, false and empty earth-bubbles.


Thus with my lips have I denounced you, while my heart,
bleeding within me, called you tender names.

It was love lashed by its own self that spoke.
It was pride half slain that fluttered in the dust.
It was my hunger for your love that raged from the housetop,
while my own love, kneeling in silence,prayed your forgiveness.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Friday, November 18, 2016

Oh Lord, give us a sense of humor by Sean O'Casey


Oh Lord, give us a sense of humor with courage to manifest it forth,
so that we may laugh to shame the pomps, the vanities, the sense
of self-importance of the Big Fellows that the world sometimes sends
among us, and who try to take our peace away.
Sean O'Casey

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Peace At Eventide(excerpt) by Helen Keller

Music:
Comme au premier jour -André Gagnon



The Evening of life
Helen Keller
Excerpt from"Peace at Eventide"

The busy day of life is over.
Its pleasures, its duties, and its anxieties
have passed away. The sunshine and the shade,
which alternately marked its path, have alike disappeared;
and the soft tints of evening are gathered over the sky.

The evening of life!
Yes! life has its sunset hour,its twilight season.
The evening of life! Evening is the time for REST.
The little bird seeks its leafy roost; the rosy-cheeked
child throws aside its playthings and falls asleep;
the weary laborer comes home from his work.
The cares of the day are forgotten —
and all is hushed and quiet.

Never should the evening of life, any
more than the evening of a single day,
be thought of with fear. For evening is a
time for home-coming, and of peace. We
should say, as Tagore said: "The evening
sky to me is like a window, and a lighted
lamp, and a waiting behind it."
There is a comforting, a beautiful certainty
and serenity in those words.

It is a day bright with sunshine. Then,
from somewhere, unexpected, comes a veil
of mist and then another, until the face
of the sun is hid from us, and all is dark
before our eyes. Yet we never doubt for
a moment the sun is still there. Some poet
has said that Life itself is "A wisp of fog
between us and the sun.I think that is
true; I think that we — that the spirit-part
of us is eternal, that the Sun of true love
and happiness is eternal, and that life,
with its hurry, its bustle, its materialism,
comes between us and the Sun, like a wisp
of fog, a veiling cloud.

Often when the heart is torn with sor-
row, spiritually we wander like a traveler
lost in a deep wood. We grow frightened,
lose all sense of direction, batter ourselves
against trees and rocks in our attempt to
find a path.


Believe, when you are most unhappy,
that there is something for you to do in
the world. So long as you can sweeten an-
other's pain, life is not in vain.

We think too much of the darkness
of night and too little of the stars that
shine in it.

What we have once enjoyed we can
never lose. A sunset, a mountain bathed
in moonlight, the ocean in calm and in
storm — we see these, love their beauty,
hold the vision to our hearts. All that we
love deeply becomes a part of us. Our be-
loved ones are no more lost to us when
they die than if they were still laughing
and loving and working and playing at
our side. Truly, life is overlord of Death
and Love can never lose its own.

Monday, November 14, 2016

Love Of Life by Lois McMaster Bujold


love of life was not a subject to be studied,
it was a contagion to be caught.
And you had to catch it from someone who had it.
Lois McMaster Bujold

Friday, November 11, 2016

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Monday, November 7, 2016

The Song of the Reed Flute by Rumi

music:
Uzak Yollardan-ahraz



The Song of the Reed Flute
Rumi

Listen, how this flute complains;
how it tells of separation.
It says: Ever since they cut me from my reedy bed,
men have cried and wailed when I cried—and women too.

I want a heart wounded by separation,
so I can tell the pain of longing.
He who is cut off from his essence looks
for the time of reunion.


I wept and moaned in every gathering,
with the well-off and the poor.
Everyone in his own way became my friend;
no one wondered about the secrets I have inside of me.

My secret is no different from what I cry aloud;
but the light to understand it is not found
in the eye or in the ear.


The body is not hidden from the soul,
nor is the soul a secret to the body;
yet no one is permitted to see the soul.

The voice of the flute is fire, not wind;
whoever does not have that fire inside him, let him leave us.
The fire of love has struck the flute; the frenzy of love has
struck the wine.


The flute is one of a pair separated from a friend,
and it is that friend; it has torn the curtains,
it has ripped away our veils.

The flute speaks of a path full of blood;
it also tells the story of Majnun's crazed love.

Who has seen a poison like the flute,
or a cure like the flute?
Who has seen a breath-companion like the flute,
or anyone who yearns like the flute?


The secret of this knowing is no different from not-knowing;
the tongue’s only customer is the ear.

The days have passed in sorrow, and become nights;
the days of fire became my travelling companions,
then burned away.


If the days pass and go, say this:
Pass, go, we have no fear.
You,friend, stay.
Nothing matches you for purity.

Everyone gets their fill of water except the fish;
for those without their daily bread the day lengthens
and gets longer.

The unripe have no understanding of the ripe; none at all.
That being the case, it’s best to cut words short—Fare thee we.

Friday, November 4, 2016

Thursday, November 3, 2016

True Love by Percy Bysshe Shelley


True Love in this differs from gold and clay,
That to divide is not to take away.
Love is like understanding, that grows bright,
Gazing on many truths; 'tis like thy light,
Imagination! which from earth and sky,
And from the depths of human phantasy,
As from a thousand prisms and mirrors, fills
The Universe with glorious beams.
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

All true opinions are living by John Ruskin


All true opinions are living, and show their life by being
capable of nourishment; therefore of change.
But their change is that of a tree — not of a cloud.
John Ruskin

Sad soul, take comfort by Celia Thaxter


Sad soul, take comfort, nor forget
That sunrise never failed us yet.
Celia Thaxter

O happy, happy morning! O dear, familiar place!
O warm, sweet tears of Heaven, fast falling on my face!
O well-remembered, rainy wind, blow all my care away,
That I may be a child again this blissful morn of May.
Celia Thaxter

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Romance


You touched
My heart..

And now I bloom,

From where I
Once bled.

From The Art of Exceptional Living :Inspirational Jim Rohn Quotes


If you are not willing to risk the unusual,
you will have to settle for the ordinary.

We must all suffer one of two things:
the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.


Days are expensive.
When you spend a day you have one less day to spend.
So make sure you spend each one wisely.

Motivation is what gets you started.
Habit is what keeps you going.

Success is nothing more than a few simple
disciplines, practiced every day.


Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better.
Don’t wish for less problems, wish for more skills.
Don’t wish for less challenge, wish for more wisdom.

The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude;
be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be thoughtful,
but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant;
have humor, but without folly.

Don’t join an easy crowd; you won’t grow.
Go where the expectations and the demands
to perform are high.
Learn how to be happy with what you have
while you pursue all that you want.

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