posi-tea-vity

• lipton :: tea
• reason :: without
• terms :: of acceptance
• positive :: vity
• example :: for
• legacy :: extacy
• solo :: clarinette
• instrument :: tool
• later :: today

- Unconscious Mutterings, week 212

every living thing

sunday and it's rain. i stand in front of the terrace door, looking out to the garden, this garden of february, this garden of trees without leafs and flowers hibernating yet. but the first messengers of life are there already: a first flower opening. a first bee. a first butterfly.

the butterfly, it takes me back to last summer, to this photo i took there. it's the same, i think. the same butterfly. or rather: the same kind of butterfly. butterflies don't fly through winter. they fade when the frost comes, leaving only their memory, and some little butterfly eggs.

the search of the butterfly photo takes me to another page, one with a quote about struggle. i wanted to copy it right away, then forgot. all i remember is that it's from Rilke. and starts with "every little thing." i type the words into google. like magic, a second later, the quote appears, in an extended version, what that moves on from struggle to aloneness, the theme of this month's philosophy cafe.

"People have, with the help of so many conventions, resolved everything the easy way, on the easiest side of easy. But it is clear that we must embrace struggle. Every living thing conforms to it. Everything in nature grows and struggles in its own way, establishing its own identity, insisting on it at all cost, against all resistance. We can be sure of very little, but the need to court struggle is a surety that will not leave us. It is good to be lonely, for being alone is not easy. The fact that something is difficult must be one more reason to do it."
- from Letters to a Young Poet

thank you, butterfly.

so little, so powerful

it's spring days here in the south of germany. it doesn't feel real, and maybe there will be winter coming back, but right now it's lovely. the flowers in the garden open, one after another, and they gave me the idea to start a flower diary.

here is the diary page: in the garden of colour. and here, an extra page for the latest entry, contributed by a little magic crocus, growing out of the green, unplanted, unexpected: so little, so powerful.

more to come. the narcisses are already building bulbs, just like the hyazinths.

- photo friday, challenge: "textured"

cross the invisible line

• threshold :: invisible
• suspicion :: dark
• tender :: touch
• tempted :: cross the line
• repulsive :: retro
• bulldog :: catfish
• garage :: door
• racket :: ball

- unconscious muttering, week 211

all-eins

alone, all one. it's the same in German. allein. all-eins. i never noticed this. then came yesterday, and with it, a philosophical cafe. which also made me look and find these lines about being alone. an invitation. in thought.

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to meet your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow;
if you have been opened by life's betrayals,
or have become shrivelled and closed for fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own:
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic,
or to remember the limitations of being human.

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day,
and if you can source your life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,
and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the moon, "YES!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair,
weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done.

It doesn't interest me who you are, how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
at the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,
and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

- Oriah Mountain Dreamer, from the book The Invitation

orange

sky is motion
towards a horizon
towards a new day
to take shape

orange is so much more
than a word
than a fruit
to slice in pieces

- photo friday, challenge: "sky"

under open trees

• the best things :: aren't things
• hold :: close
• rapture :: bite
• cover :: under
• restrictive :: open
• baker :: street
• author :: ship
• pill :: pink
• months :: trees

- unconscious mutterings, week 210

on writing

going through mails i just came across this list of questions sent from the young cousin of a friend for a school exercise, and my answers. thinking of it, this in fact was the first interview i gave about writing.

Q: I also need some advice from you. You are a writer?
A: Yes, I am a writer - I write short stories and poems. So far I have one book published: "Masala Moments" - it's a travel novel, based on my own journeys through India.

Q: What are the skills that I need to be a good writer?
A: The skills a writer need are: curiousity for the world, and the patience to work with a text as long as it takes to make it good. Also it's important to read a lot. And to write a lot. Someone once gave me this advice: "Write a lot. Write everyday. Write as much as possible. The more you write the better your writing gets."

Q: A. says that you are German. Do you write in German or English?"
A: I am German, and I write both in German and in English.

Q: What do you enjoy most about writing?
A: What I enjoy most about writing... to create scenes and stories just by using a pencil and a paper. it's like magic, isn't it? there's the white page, and an hour later, there's a story or a poem that will be read by others, by people I have never met.
.

closer

the world seen
from the point of view
of a crocus
is a larger world,
and at the same time
a closer world.

sky over now

• limit :: sky
• voice :: over
• change :: now
• expression :: image
• tailor :: shirt
• lemonade :: ginger
• thought :: dream
• impression :: monet
• sister :: flower

- unconscious mutterings, week 208