Sunday, June 27, 2010

Remember

From as far back as I can remember one of my deepest feelings was that I did not belong to this world, that the reality society perceived was not reality at all. Even my very senses seemed to be in flux, at times more like a surreal painting than a photograph. Light, color and dimension rippled like the waters of a pond. Smells and tastes held worlds of their own, opening like new dimensions before me.

Persistent was an overwhelming longing to return to someplace other than the everyday world we move about in. While most people fall asleep and have unreal and confusing dreams or experience altered realities under an intense fever, the surreal realm of the dreamscape was where I felt most at peace. I spent my childhood in meditation, pushing aside the layers of delusion that keep our minds eye chained to the day to day world, and escaping back to the deeper realm I called home.

Space and time come unraveled, colors come into being that had never existed, ideas fall from the sky like drops of rain, and the laws of this reality hold no sway. In this world you are not trapped within the confines of your body, it becomes inconsequential. You recognize that you are intrinsically connected to everyone and everything that ever has been and ever will be.

Remember that you are not really here.
Remember where you must be.
Your eyes are about to tell you something that your mouth already knows.
Your ears are about to tell you something your feet already know.
Remember that you've never really been here.
Remember that you have never really been here.
Your nose picks up a fragrance and lets it go.
Your mouth picks up a taste,
and lets it swallow itself up into the very oceans of your body.
Remember you have not really ever, ever been here.
~ pulled from my mind by Alex Caldiero




Friday, June 25, 2010

Perfection

I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem;
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many, but I love none better than you.

I have been dilatory and dumb;
I should have made my way straight to you long ago;
I should have talked of nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you.

I will leave all, and come and make the hymns of you;
None have understood you, but I understand you;
None have done justice to you—you have not done justice to yourself;
None have found you perfect—I only find no imperfection in you;
Some seek to subordinate you—I only am she who will never consent to subordinate you; I only am she who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.

I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are—you have slumbered upon yourself all your life; Your eye-lids have been the same as closed most of the time.

Underneath you, and within you, I see you.
I pursue you where none else has pursued you;
Silence, the flippant expression, the accustomed routine, if these conceal you from others, or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me.

I give nothing to any one, except I give the like carefully to you;
I sing the songs of the glory of none, sooner than I sing the songs of the glory of you.

Monday, June 21, 2010

The Space Between...

The creative process, so far as we are able to follow it at all, consists in the unconscious activation of an archetypal image and elaborating and shaping the image into the finished work. By giving it shape, the artist translates it into the language of the present and so makes it possible for us to find our way back to the deepest springs of life." - Carl Jung

From the Dada activities of World War I, Surrealism was formed. The cultural hub of the movement was Paris in the 1920s, but it's influence quickly spread around the globe. Poet and critic André Breton has long been considered the major spokesman for the Surrealism movement. In his 1924 work "The Surrealist Manifesto" Breton proclaimed that Surrealism was a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious realms of experience so completely, that the world of dream and fantasy would be joined to the everyday rational world in "an absolute reality, a surreality."

Joan Miro , a Spanish artist is recognized as one of the most important of the Surrealists. He created fantasy worlds that lacked realism and challenged reason, as in" Hirondelle Amour", 1933-34, oil on canvas. Notice the elements of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur.

Another artist who painted in the surrealist style was the Belgian painter Rene' Magritte. Her paintings force the viewer to reconsider what is real and what is not, for example the "Les Promendades d' Euclide ", 1955, oil on canvas. The work seems to show a room with a painting mounted on an easel. A window just behind the easel displays a view of a city. Yet a longer look raises a question Is the object on the easel really a painting or the scene behind it? Why is the shape of the tower identical to that of the street? Magritte offers no answers to these questions but instead, leaves us to ponder a picture that makes as much sense as a dream. Surrealism created new styles and techniques that inspired artists to go beyond their dreams with new ideas, new creations and a new world.

Surrealist writers and artists wanted to drive out reason, they were looking for states in which what is deep down in our minds may come to surface. I love the strange confusion between dream and reality, I call this place home, it is freedom in its truest form. I believe in the reality of our dreams and yes Dali... you read my mind.


Sunday, June 13, 2010

Glósóli: Glowing Sun




The rhythmatic, underwater beat of the drum makes me feel as if I am dreaming, searching and progressing toward an enlightened new day.

When the low notes empathize,
And the high notes inspire me,
Where the enigma enchants me,
The beats put forth motion,
Which my heart commands,
There lies a boundless existence,
That can exist without dimensions or words,
Within my mind.


Saturday, June 12, 2010

Key To My Heart

When I was a little girl my grandmother had, what seemed to me, a thousand antique treasures. Their unique shapes and mysterious origins held my young imagination captivate for hours on end. By far my favorite of Grandma's wondrous trinkets was a small brass key that she had laid reverently upon the scarlet velvet interior of her Grandmother's Dutch jewelry box, painted white with blue windmills across its surface. Whenever I would ask her what this little key was made to unlock, and why it held such a reverent place, my grandmother would bend close to my ear and, in a hushed whisper, she would tell me
"That is the key to the world of the fairies."

The winter I turned nine my parents let me fly out to see my grandma. On the morning of my birthday I woke up to find only one small present laid out on her round wooden table, a little white box tied up with a pink bow. My excitement grew because grandma had a saying that the best things in life came in small packages. My delight turned to surprise as I opened the box and found the magic key that I had been admiring for so many years.

In vain I searched everywhere I could think of for the door that would lead me to the fairy land. I carried the key with me wherever I went and tried it against the locks of every door, cupboard and box I came across, but I never found it's home. As I grew older I came to believe that the world of fairies must be locked away inside of our hearts, and that my Grandmother's key was crafted to magically unlock mine.

Ever since then I have kept the key to my heart tucked safely away where I would never lose it. On days that life feels especially wondrous I take it out to admire it the same as I did when I was little. A reminder to myself of the magic that holds our universe together.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Rowing the Boat of Fate

Nobody knows who I really am
I never felt this empty before
And if I ever need someone to come along,
Who's gonna comfort me, and keep me strong?

We are all rowing the boat of fate
The waves keep on coming and we can't escape
But if we ever get lost on our way
The waves would guide you through another day.

Each breath escaping my body becomes transparent and goes far away
And even when I think everything’s dark, I’m only blindfolded.

I give a prayer as I wait for the new day
Shining vividly up to the edge of that sea.

Nobody knows who I really am
Maybe they just don't give a damn
But if I ever need someone to come along
I know you would follow me, and keep me strong.

Offering a prayer, I wait for a new day to come
Until the reflection of the sunrise sparkling on the sea disappears completely.

And every time I see your face
The ocean heaves up to my heart
You make me wanna strain at the oars, and soon
I can see the shore.

Oh, I can see the shore
When will I see the shore?

I want you to know who I really am
I never thought I'd feel this way towards you
And if you ever need someone to come along,
I will follow you, and keep you strong.

And still the journey continues on quiet days as well
The moon in its new cycle shines on the boats again.

I give a prayer as I wait for the new day
Shining vividly up to the edge of that sea.

And every time I see your face
The ocean heaves up to my heart
You make me wanna strain at the oars, and soon
I can see the shore.

We are rowing the boat of fate, but the waves keep attacking us
But isn't that still a wonderful journey?




Sunday, June 6, 2010

Hold My Heart

I love it when you dream with me
and when you hold me tight
I love the way you look at me
you make my soul take flight.

I love the way you talk to me
and the way you make me laugh
I love the way you see the world
even cynical at that.

I love the way you give me strength
and when I feel you near
I love the way you read my mind
and take away my fear.

I love the way you look at me
and the happiness you bring
I love the way we fantasize
with you everyday is spring.

I love the way that we make love
and hurt when we're apart
but mostly I love the way I feel
and the way you hold my heart.

Friday, June 4, 2010

The Best Kind of Love

The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds, and that's what you've given me. That's what I hope to give to you forever.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Evil Empire Part 2: "Magic" Seeds

Indian farmer


The children were inconsolable. Mute with shock and fighting back tears, they huddled beside their mother as friends and neighbors prepared their father's body for cremation on a blazing bonfire built on the cracked, barren fields near their home.

As flames consumed the corpse, Ganjanan, 12, and Kalpana, 14, faced a grim future. While Shankara Mandaukar had hoped his son and daughter would have a better life under India's economic boom, they now face working as slave labor for a few pence a day. Landless and homeless, they will be the lowest of the low. Shankara, respected farmer, loving husband and father, had taken his own life. Less than 24 hours earlier, facing the loss of his land due to debt, he drank a cupful of chemical insecticide. Unable to pay back the equivalent of two years' earnings, he was in despair. He could see no way out.

There were still marks in the dust where he had writhed in agony. Other villagers looked on - they knew from experience that any intervention was pointless - as he lay doubled up on the ground, crying out in pain and vomiting. Moaning, he crawled on to a bench outside his simple home 100 miles from Nagpur in central India. An hour later, he stopped making any noise. Then he stopped breathing. At 5pm on Sunday, the life of Shankara Mandaukar came to an end.As neighbors gathered to pray outside the family home, Nirmala Mandaukar, 50, told how she rushed back from the fields to find her husband dead. 'He was a loving and caring man,' she said, weeping quietly. 'But he couldn't take any more. The mental anguish was too much. We have lost everything.'

Shankara's crop had failed - twice. Of course, famine and pestilence are part of India's ancient story. But the death of this respected farmer has been blamed on something far more modern and sinister: genetically modified crops.

Shankara, like millions of other Indian farmers, had been promised previously unheard of harvests and income if he switched from farming with traditional seeds to planting GM seeds instead. Beguiled by the promise of future riches, he borrowed money in order to buy the GM seeds. But when the harvests failed, he was left with spiraling debts - and no income. So Shankara became one of an estimated 125,000 farmers to take their own life as a result of the ruthless drive to use India as a testing ground for genetically modified crops. The crisis, branded the 'GM Genocide' by campaigners, was highlighted recently when Prince Charles claimed that the issue of GM had become a 'global moral question' - and the time had come to end its unstoppable march.

Monsanto

For official figures from the Indian Ministry of Agriculture do indeed confirm that in a huge humanitarian crisis, more than 1,000 farmers kill themselves here each month. Simple, rural people, they are dying slow, agonizing deaths. Most swallow insecticide - a pricey substance they were promised they would not need when they were coerced into growing expensive GM crops.

It seems that many are massively in debt to local money-lenders, having over-borrowed to purchase GM seed. Pro-GM experts claim that it is rural poverty, alcoholism, drought and 'agrarian distress' that is the real reason for the horrific toll. But that is not the full story. In one small village 18 farmers have committed suicide after being sucked into GM debts. In some cases, women have taken over farms from their dead husbands - only to kill themselves as well.

Latta Ramesh, 38, drank insecticide after her crops failed - two years after her husband disappeared when the GM debts became too much. She left her ten-year-old son, Rashan, in the care of relatives. 'He cries when he thinks of his mother,' said the dead woman's aunt, sitting listlessly in shade near the fields.Village after village, families tell how they had fallen into debt after being persuaded to buy GM seeds instead of traditional cotton seeds. The price difference is staggering: £10 for 100 grams of GM seed, compared with less than £10 for 1,000 times more traditional seeds. But GM salesmen and government officials had promised farmers that these were 'magic seeds' - with better crops that would be free from parasites and insects.

Indeed, in a bid to promote the uptake of GM seeds, traditional varieties were banned from many government seed banks. The authorities had a vested interest in promoting this new biotechnology. Desperate to escape the grinding poverty of the post-independence years, the Indian government had agreed to allow new bio-tech giants, such as the U.S. market-leader Monsanto, to sell their new seed creations.

In return for allowing western companies access to the second most populated country in the world, with more than one billion people, India was granted International Monetary Fund loans in the Eighties and Nineties, helping to launch an economic revolution. But while cities such as Mumbai and Delhi have boomed, the farmers' lives have slid back into the dark ages.

Though areas of India planted with GM seeds have doubled in two years - up to 17 million acres - many farmers have found there is a terrible price to be paid. Far from being 'magic seeds', GM pest-proof 'breeds' of cotton have been devastated by bollworms, a voracious parasite. Nor were the farmers told that these seeds require double the amount of water. This has proved a matter of life and death.With rains failing for the past two years, many GM crops have simply withered and died, leaving the farmers with crippling debts and no means of paying them off. Having taken loans from traditional money lenders at extortionate rates, hundreds of thousands of small farmers have faced losing their land as the expensive seeds fail, while those who could struggle on faced a fresh crisis.


When crops failed in the past, farmers could still save seeds and replant them the following year. But with GM seeds they cannot do this. That's because GM seeds contain so- called 'terminator technology', meaning that they have been genetically modified so that the resulting crops do not produce viable seeds of their own. As a result, farmers have to buy new seeds each year at the same punitive prices. For some, that means the difference between life and death.

Take the case of Suresh Bhalasa, another farmer who was cremated , leaving a wife and two children. As night fell after the ceremony, and neighbors squatted outside while sacred cows were brought in from the fields, his family had no doubt that their troubles stemmed from the moment they were encouraged to buy BT Cotton, a genetically modified plant created by Monsanto.

'We are ruined now,' said the dead man's 38-year-old wife. 'We bought 100 grams of BT Cotton. Our crop failed twice. My husband had become depressed. He went out to his field, lay down in the cotton and swallowed insecticide.' Villagers bundled him into a rickshaw and headed to hospital along rutted farm roads. 'He cried out that he had taken the insecticide and he was sorry,' she said, as her family and neighbors crowded into her home to pay their respects. 'He was dead by the time they got to hospital.' Asked if the dead man was a 'drunkard' or suffered from other 'social problems', as alleged by pro-GM officials, the quiet, dignified gathering erupted in anger. 'No! No!' one of the dead man's brothers exclaimed. 'Suresh was a good man. He sent his children to school and paid his taxes. 'He was strangled by these magic seeds. They sell us the seeds, saying they will not need expensive pesticides but they do. We have to buy the same seeds from the same company every year. It is killing us. Please tell the world what is happening here.'

Monsanto has admitted that soaring debt was a 'factor in this tragedy'. But pointing out that cotton production had doubled in the past seven years, a spokesman added that there are other reasons for the recent crisis, such as 'untimely rain' or drought, and pointed out that suicides have always been part of rural Indian life. Officials also point to surveys saying the majority of Indian farmers want GM seeds - no doubt encouraged to do so by aggressive marketing tactics.With rumors of imminent government compensation to stem the wave of deaths, many farmers said they were desperate for any form of assistance. 'We just want to escape from our problems,' one said. 'We just want help to stop any more of us dying.' India's farmers are also starting to fight back. As well as taking GM seed distributors hostage and staging mass protests, one state government is taking legal action against Monsanto for the exorbitant costs of GM seeds.

This came too late for Shankara Mandauker, who was 80,000 rupees (about £1,000) in debt when he took his own life. 'I told him that we can survive,' his widow said, her children still by her side as darkness fell. 'I told him we could find a way out. He just said it was better to die.' But the debt does not die with her husband: unless she can find a way of paying it off, she will not be able to afford the children's schooling. They will lose their land, joining the hordes seen begging in their thousands by the roadside throughout this vast, chaotic country.
Cruelly, it's the young who are suffering most from the 'GM Genocide' - the very generation supposed to be lifted out of a life of hardship and misery by these 'magic seeds'. In the suicide belt of India, the cost of the genetically modified future is murderously high.


Original author: Andrew Malone

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Dream

Dream: noun
Pronunciation: \ˈdrēm\

1 : a series of thoughts, images, or emotions occurring during sleep.
2 a : an experience of waking life having the characteristics of a dream: a visionary creation of the imagination b : a state of mind marked by abstraction or release from reality.
3 : something notable for its beauty, excellence, or enjoyable quality.
4 a : a strongly desired goal or purpose b : something that fully satisfies a wish.

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Edgar Allan Poe

Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you.
Marsha Norman

Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?
Alfred Lord Tennyson

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
Henry David Thoreau

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?
Robert Kennedy

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
Carl Jung

The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
William Shakespeare

Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.
Kahlil Gibran

Hope is a waking dream.
Aristotle

A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.
John Lennon

Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.
Anais Nin

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?
Plato

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
Edgar Allan Poe

I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.
Bob Dylan


I Would...

I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,
Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that
recedes.

I would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me,
I would beat with your heart as it beats, I would follow your soul as it
leads.

I would carry you with me through all of time and space,
Holding you tightly against me, breathing you, tasting you,
becoming you.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Leaves

Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

~Walt Whitman