View allAll Photos Tagged PASSIVITY
an exchange between you and the landscape, in which - however unlikely this may seem - there is a dialogue between the two of you. It is simply courtesy to allow the landscape to speak :-)
Charlie Waite
HBW! Justice Matters! Indict Trump!
sarah p duke gardens, duke university, durham, north carolina
Another for "Sunrise in Storkow" from last Sunday morning, as I said from...
...it was quite the moment and I was a bit of kid in a sweet shop, being somewhat spoilt for choice, though the locals were already, believe it or not, coming down to swim in the lake and I had in my broken German to reassure the concerned looking Grandmas that I don't photograph people. The conversation was a bit like this...
Me: "Entschuldigung, Mein Deutsch ist wirklich schlecht, ich bin photographie, nicht menschen, nur tiere, wasser und sonne!"
Literal Translation (Excuse me, my German is really bad, I am photography, not people, only animals, water and Sun!"
The German lady's response in perfect English was "Yea, that's OK I understand!"
I walked away feeling like a right wally!
So I hope everyone is well and as always, thank you! :)
PS: two lenses I used here were the Tamron 70-300mm and Nikkor 55-200mm VR1.
The Florentine area code is 055. Most phones have six numbers, but don’t be surprised if some have seven, four, or even eight. If you require assistance, dial “O”, and wait for the operator. You will hear a rather vague and indistinct hum on the line, perhaps meaningful, perhaps not. As you go on waiting, remember that believing in progress and making progress are not the same thing. It is only your weakness, your vanity and passivity and lack of imagination, that makes you cling to this notion of an “operator” in the first place.
Kafka's Budget Guide to Florence by Robert Cohen
KRAFT DER FARBEN – DIE FARBE BLAU
FARBE BLAU: HARMONIE, ZUFRIEDENHEIT, RUHE, PASSIVITÄT, UNENDLICHKEIT, …
Die Farbe Blau: Blau wirkt beruhigend und entspannend. Diese Farbe eignet sich optimal, um inneren und äußeren Frieden zu finden, um Stress und Hektik abzubauen. Blau löst nervös bedingte Verkrampfungen, die Muskeln lockern sich und das Herz kann sich wieder beruhigen. Blau vermittelt die ausgleichende Energie, die unser Organismus benötigt, um den zunehmend hektischen Alltag ruhig und gelassen zu bewältigen. Blau wird in der Farbtherapie unter anderem zur Behandlung von Migräne, Halsbeschwerden, fieberhaften Erkrankungen und Rückenschmerzen eingesetzt. Als meditative Farbe, lässt sich Blau zur Abkühlung vom Tagesstress, zur Regeneration und Erholung einsetzen. (Quelle: www.innovative-eyewear.de)
Power of colors - the color blue
COLOUR BLUE : HARMONY , SATISFACTION , tranquility , passivity , infinity, ...
The color blue : blue is calming and relaxing . This color is ideal to find internal and external peace , to relieve stress and hassle. Blue triggers nervously induced cramps , the muscles relax and the heart can calm down . Blue conveys the balancing energy that our organism needs to cope with the increasingly hectic everyday calm and composed . Blue is used in color therapy , including the treatment of migraine , sore throats , fevers and back pain . As a meditative color to blue allows to cool down from a stressful day , used for regeneration and relaxation . ( Source: www.innovative-eyewear.de )
"Life must not be simply accepted or undergone: it must be lived. Evil itself must be not merely 'borne' but resisted, used, turned to good account. In all passivities, whether of growth or of diminishment, and even in the ultimate passivity of death, in which our whole being disintegrates, man can and must enter into communion with Christ."
-Thomas Merton, LOVE AND LIVING, page 180
“Light rain all night. The need to keep working at meditation—going to the root. Mere passivity won’t due at this point. But activism won’t due either. A time of wordless deepening, to grasp the inner reality of my nothingness in Him Who Is. Talking about it in these terms seems absurd. Seems to have nothing to do with the concrete reality that is to be grasped. My prayer is peace and struggle in silence, to be pure and true, beyond my self, and to go outside the door of my self, not because I will it, but because I am called and must respond.”
- Thomas Merton (April 4, 1965) from A Year with Thomas Merton p. 97
----------------------------
Unless we step into the uncharted territory of the gender revolution, we know exactly where we will be regressing. An all-powerful State that infantilises us, interferes in all our decisions for our own good and—under the pretext of protecting us—keeps us in a childish state of ignorance, fear of punishment and exclusion. The special treatment until now reserved for women, with shame as the primary tool for ensuring their isolation, passivity and lack of protest, could now be extended to all. To understand the mechanics of how women have been made to feel inferior, and induced to willingly maintain themselves in this state, is to understand how the entire population is kept under control. Capitalism is an egalitarian religion, in the sense that it demands general submission, making everyone feel trapped—as all women are.
Virginie Despentes, King Kong Theory
Liturgical language is action language. It coaxes people reduced to passivity by traumatic disruptions to move back together in a common effort. Liturgies are public events that require people to gather, to use gestures and speech in an embodied enactment of a new relationship with God. They provide patterned forms of praying and create a sense of order. They offer language to heal “ruptures in the cultural system of knowing” and promote cultural continuity by evoking prayers of the past. “They piece together the traditions,” retrieving, reclaiming, reassembling them to make meaning in the present. Rituals draw people back to one another from isolating pain and severed bonds that follow disaster. They stir people to life, require exertion and participation, and serve as an antidote to victimhood and helplessness.
-Jeremiah PAIN AND PROMISE, Kathleen M. O’Connor
Now man with all his faculties and also with his soul recollects himself and enters into the temple (his inner self) in which, in all truth, he finds God dwelling and at work. Man then comes to experience God not after the fashion of the senses and of reason, or like something that one understands or reads . . . but he tastes Him, and enjoys Him like something that springs up from the “ground” of the soul as from its own source, or from a fountain, without having been brought there, for a fountain is better than a cistern, the water of cisterns gets stale and evaporates, but the spring flows, bursts out, swells: it is true, not borrowed. It is sweet. (Sermon for the Thursday before Palm Sunday)
After this, one should open the ground of the soul and the deep will to the sublimity of the glorious Godhead, and look upon Him with great and humble fear and denial of oneself. He who in this fashion casts down before God his shadowy and unhappy ignorance then begins to understand the words of Job, who said: The spirit passed before me. From this passage of the Spirit is born a great tumult in the soul. And the more this passage has been clear, true, unmixed with natural impressions, all the more rapid, strong, prompt, true and pure will be the work which takes place in the soul, the thrust which overturns it; clearer also will be the knowledge that man has stopped on the path to perfection. The Lord then comes like a flash of lightning; he fills the ground of the soul with light and wills to establish Himself there as the Master Workman. As soon as one is conscious of the presence of the Master, one must, in all passivity, abandon the work to Him. (Second Sermon for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, #5)
-John Tauler (ca. 1300–1361) was a German Dominican and mystical writer, a disciple of Meister Eckhart.
Freedom to enter the inner sanctuary of our being is denied to those who are held back by dependence on self-gratification and sense satisfaction, whether it be a matter of pleasure seeking, love of comfort, or proneness to anger, self-assertion, pride, vanity, greed, and all the rest.
-The Inner Experience Notes on Contemplation THOMAS MERTON
-Tangerine Dream, Sun Gate
La sérénité est un sentiment extrêmement agréable, de tranquillité et d'apaisement. Il n'y a aucune réflexion, aucune intention. Juste le fait de savourer l'instant présent ; une saine passivité du corps et de l'esprit.
Serenity is an extremely pleasant feeling of tranquility and peace. There is no thought, no intention. Just savoring the present moment; a healthy passivity of body and mind.
For me, this image captures the lightness and passivity of being. In nature we can relax, observe and admire how the earth moves around us - even if a busy city street lies just five minutes away.
El yin y el yang (en chino, 阴阳; pinyin, yīnyáng; literalmente, ‘oscuro-brillante’) son dos conceptos del taoísmo, que son usados para representar o referirse a las dos fuerzas fundamentales opuestas y complementarias, pero interconectadas, que se encuentran en todas las cosas; y que esta filosofía atribuye a todo lo existente en el universo. El yin es el principio femenino, la tierra, la oscuridad, la pasividad y la absorción. El yang es el principio masculino, el cielo, la luz, la actividad y la penetración.
Yin and yang (Chinese: 阴阳; pinyin: yīnyáng; literally: ‘dark-bright’) are two concepts from Taoism, which are used to represent or refer to the two fundamental opposing and complementary, but interconnected, forces that are found in all things; and which this philosophy attributes to everything existing in the universe. Yin is the feminine principle, the earth, darkness, passivity and absorption. Yang is the masculine principle, the sky, light, activity and penetration.
Amsterdam
Copyright - All images are copyright © protected. All Rights Reserved. Copying, altering, displaying or redistribution of any of these images without written permission from the artist is strictly prohibited
“We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.
This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”
― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1qxiAxDwYc
I've changed the title, somebody pointed me out to the similarity with an album cover from Tears for Fears. I was already struggling with the title. The title I use is always related to how I feel, what I've been through. It's always part of my own process in life and I feel really hurt.
Teilhard says we can further God’s project not only by our activities but also by how we deal with daily passivities of diminishment as well as those endured while suffering and dying. What does Jesus do with the energy he spends in suffering physical pain, emotional rejection, and spiritual pain? What is its purpose? Is it purely a waste? Can the energy spent enduring these things be used to benefit the growth of the kingdom of God? Teilhard answers yes.1 That is what Jesus teaches us on the cross. The energy being spent in enduring passivities, just as the energy being spent in performing activities, may be directed to energize God’s project by one’s intention. In the kingdom, no energy need be wasted. Even the energy endured in unwelcome passivities may be directed to contribute to God’s project. Teilhard sees Jesus doing precisely this. God’s will is always to promote the growth of the kingdom. Jesus’s prayer is, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on Earth….” This is the meaning of all martyrdom. One willingly undergoes martyrdom to help the growth of God’s kingdom, not merely to save one’s soul. In Teilhard’s terminology, one acts and does good deeds to help accomplish God’s work on Earth by one’s activities of growth. One transforms suffering and passivities to help accomplish God’s work on Earth by one’s activities of growth. One dies—a passivity—to help accomplish God’s work on Earth by turning it into an activity of growth.
- Teilhard de Chardin on the Gospels The Message of Jesus for an Evolutionary World Louis M. Savary Foreword by Richard Rohr
Yin-yang, in Eastern thought, are the two complementary forces that make up all aspects and phenomena of life.
Yin is a symbol of earth, femaleness, darkness, passivity.
Yang is conceived of as heaven, maleness, light, activity.
In harmony, the two are depicted as the light and dark halves of a circle.
«Spectacle is the sun that never sets over the empire of modern passivity» ― Guy Debord
Lined up for the daily sunset spectacle. Duino (TS), Italy. © Michele Marcolin, 2023. K1ii + DFA150-450
Many accuse me of indifference and passivity when I refuse to go into hiding; they say that I have given up. They say everyone who can, must try to stay out of their clutches, it’s our bounden duty to try. But that argument is specious. For while everyone tries to save himself, vast numbers are nevertheless disappearing. And the funny thing is, I don’t feel I’m in their clutches anyway, whether I stay or am sent away. I find all that talk so cliché-ridden and naive, and can’t go along with it anymore. I don’t feel in anybody’s clutches … They may well succeed in breaking me physically, but no more than that. I may face cruelty and deprivation the likes of which I cannot imagine in even my wildest fantasies. Yet all this is as nothing to the immeasurable expanse of my faith in God and my inner receptiveness. I shall always be able to stand on my own two feet even when they are planted on the hardest soil of the harshest reality. And my acceptance is not indifference or helplessness. I feel deep moral indignation at a regime that treats human beings in such a way. But events have become too overwhelming and too demonic to be stemmed with personal resentment and bitterness. These responses strike me as being utterly childish and unequal to the “fateful” course of events. (ET 2002, 487)
-Etty Hillesum
In a somber forest glade, Snow White lay still in her glass coffin, a tragic tableau of beauty and unfulfilled dreams. Time had passed, and no prince had come to awaken her with true love's kiss. Her fate served as a haunting reminder that we can wither away while waiting for another to breathe life into us. Snow White, once vibrant and full of life, now bore the weight of her own passivity. Her story, a cautionary tale, underscores the importance of self-reliance and agency in our own lives. It reminds us that the power to awaken our dreams and aspirations often resides within, and that waiting for someone else to define our existence can lead to a slumber from which we may never awaken.
Shadowfell
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/MIST%20II/198/90/26
GROUP COVER - SL ƤαριƖƖσηѕ єт Ɓєαυтє́ - Aηутнιηg! - October 26, 2023
Candid photography more often than not is about capturing heightened emotions or scenes. Here I was amused by the total passivity of these worthy gentlemen.
:))
Explored 18 Jan 2012
Amusing Ourselves to Death
by Neil Postman
'What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.'
Internet.
at the end, we come to the point: if something is highly beneficial but you're still dependent upon it, is it fair to call it an addiction?
for years now i've lived all my waking hours online in some form or another. at the bare minimum of remote connectivity, i've been getting email on my phone for at least five years. i can't pinpoint exactly when i lost that last shred of unconnected time, which says to me that i don't miss it.
with the exception of bryan who i see at work, all my friends are virtual. still, i talk to them every day in various ways, and it doesn't make them any less friends. people from the TV Generation often find this strange, but i'd ask them how frequently they get together with their physically distant friends, and is quailty or quantity more important when it comes to staying in touch?
so... i spend a lot of time online. it doesn't keep me from doing any other important thing. it doesn't encourage passivity like the same amount of time spent in front of a TV would; just the opposite - it fosters engagement with and control of one's information intake. it's not a waste of time, and it's necessary to modern life. going back to a pre-internet time now would be like going back to a time before the printing press. it is a dependency, but not an addiction.
I was heading back home from the local canal and I happened upon the most relaxed looking Duck I'd ever seen. Took this using the Tamron 70-300mm.
Nearly the weekend, hope everyone is well and as always thank you!
After waiting for two weeks, I had the opportunity to go to a firing range. And I was very anxious. Two coworkers and I made plans after seeing their target posters hanging near their cubicles. I wanted the same experience. So they invited me. Little did I know that the experience would mark a line through an item on my invisible Bucket List.
I had never fired a real gun before. I can remember being asked once but I let the opportunity go out of fear. I regret letting it pass. I didn’t see a need to do it, but deep inside I still wanted to. I wanted the experience, but I didn’t make it a priority. This is why I accepted the invitation.
I didn't mind people knowing that I was a newbie. It was my first time. I started with a 22mm. It felt no different than a BB Gun. I thought, "Hey, this isn't so bad!" I fired 10 rounds. Afterward, I learned how to reload the magazine. "Cool!", I thought. So I fired again until it was empty.
Then I was asked if I wanted to fire the 9mm. I didn't see anything wrong with that. What could be the difference? I found out on the first shot! I was told to expect a little more kick, but I didn't imagine it being too significant. So I pulled the trigger. The gun gave a slightly larger sound and kicked a little harder. I remember the heat coming from the gun across my face and the bullet shell flipping over my shoulder. I immediately recognized the danger. I knew that I was dealing with a killer. My respect increased too. I knew that I was holding a weapon. With nine bullets left I continued to fire at the target. I tried to hide my fear while absorbing the enjoyment out of it. I was loving it!
I have realized that life is short. Yet it is filled with experiences. And in order to partake in them, one cannot be passive. Each experience has to be planned. And with the completion of each there exists a charge of energy, thrill, excitement, and warmth. There is a satisfaction like none other.
This was an accomplishment for me. It wasn't for education or career. It was more personal. It was a private victory. As I left the shooting range I jokingly said to a friend, "I can mark that off of my bucket list." But that actually held true for me. It made me feel that I should actually create a list. It would contain all of the experiences that I wanted before my dying day. I realized that passivity is not an option.
This felt good. I have marked it off of my list.
Nope. Bitterness, frustration, passivity and "learned helplessness" comes to those who do nothing but wait. The universe doesn't care how long you sit idly waiting for someone/something to gift you what you want. It'll happily let you wait forever.
If you want something, *go and get it*. If you have needs, desires, dreams and goals, run towards them. Don't wait. Fortune favours the bold.
Malta: Charles Bray took this picture from another painting where you could see the Fort of St. Angelo with the French flag raised up, surrounded with French Warships in the Grand Harbour as Malta was taken by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798. The island of Malta was an important strategic stronghold in the Mediterranean Sea and Napoleon Bonaparte knew that controlling it would boost France's naval capacity in the region. It would also help secure the supply lines of his expedition to Egypt and so when the French fleet arrived off Malta on 9 June, Napoleon's plan was to find an excuse to wrest it from the control of the Order of St John. On the same day the gigantic Egyptian invasion fleet (numbering about 50,000 men), commanded by Admiral Brueys, in effect set siege on Malta. As a result of the passivity of the inhabitants and the few troops available to Grand-Master Hompesch (332 knights, 3,600 men in the harbour and about 13,000 militia men from the countryside around), the siege was not to be more than more than a few cannonades. On the morning of the 10th, French forces attacked simultaneously at four different spots. Desaix, after securing Marsaxlokk Bay, was to cross the Cottonera lines and if possible take on of the principal gates of Valetta by assault. Vaubois, the future governor of the island during the two year siege, was to land with his men on the coast stretching between Sliema and Qawra Point, to move in land and take Mdina and the surrounding villages. D'Hilliers was instructed to take St Paul's and Mellieha Bays and to advance to Mdina and the Madliena Heights. Finally Reynier was to occupy the poorly-defended island of Gozo. By the afternoon all apart from the Grand and Marsamxett Harbours and Fort St Lucian were in French hands. On 12th, the Hompech capitulated.
If she had a name, it would probably be very close to an actual feminine English name, if not an actual feminine English name. If she had a personality, it would probably be defined by her passivity compared to male teammates. If she was in a story, she'd probably develop something akin to a romantic relationship with the self-insert character despite the ban on romance.
Sàhara: generacions nascudes a l'exili.
Dues generacions han nascut en aquests camps a l'exili. La major part sobreviu refugiada a Algèria enmig d'un desert estèril i amb unes condicions de vida duríssimes. 173.600 persones sahrauís estan refugiades en els campaments de Tindouf, segons ACNUR.
I a tots aquests problemes cal afegir l'èxode de la gent jove. La joventut es debat entre la resistència, la rebel·lió i la desesperança.
Davant la manca d'oportunitats i la passivitat de la comunitat internacional, que fa efecte en les expectatives d'aquest poble de recuperar les seves terres, una de les poques opcions que els queden és intentar emigrar a altres països, com Espanya.
Campaments Refugiats Sahrauís - Auserd - Hedja i el seu fill Abba.
-------------------------------------------------
Young Sahrawi mother.
Sahara: generations born in exile.
Two generations were born in these camps in exile. Most of them survive as refugees in Algeria in the middle of a barren desert and with very harsh living conditions. 173,600 Sahrawis have taken refuge in Tindouf camps, according to UNHCR.
And to all these problems must be added the exodus of young people. Youth is struggling between resistance, rebellion and despair.
Given the lack of opportunities and passivity of the international community, which affects the expectations of this people to recover their land, one of the few options they have left is to try to emigrate to other countries, such as Spain.
Sahrawi Refugee Camps - Auserd - Hedja and his son Abba.
Critique Welcome
Taken for the "Made of metal" them for the "Macro Monday" group. Coin is about 1.25 inches in diameter. It was originally part of the keychain.
Men's Fraternity
Reject Passivity
Accept Responsibility
Lead Courageously
Expect God's Reward
Men's Fraternity: Authentic Manhood: Winning at Work & Home by Robert Lewis challenges men to step forward, meet their responsibilities, and establish their manhood. This study focuses on the chief responsibilities men have as husbands, fathers, and breadwinners. Two mirrors are presented to help men evaluate how they are doing in life: the mirror of work and career, and the mirror of home and family.
DSC_0634a
1. Nails, 2. Check This Out !, 3. Dutch kroks.........;-), 4. L I T T L E - S T A R (S), 5. T O G E T H E R - F O R E V E R, 6. Red=intense, blue=passivity, 7. Excuse Me Mr, 8. Simply Stunning!, 9. Jennifer Lives Here, 10. colors, 11. Blue Umbrellas at Playa Puerto Marques, 12. "The Grand Dad's home... " ............DSCF0047110807_1a, 13. P8110236 Almost Ready to Leave #5 (Do view large), 14. Eyes, 15. Untitled, 16. bug in lights, 17. Peachy Spider, 18. Wasp - Philanthus gibbosus, 19. Dragonfly, 20. From days gone by~, 21. And this is Dorie~, 22. COLHEITA, 23. Amanda Faith, 24. Flower Macro, 25. Angry Wasps, 26. Escholzia californica, 27. Alstromeria, 28. Butterfly3, 29. Rainy days..., 30. Thistle Glow, 31. Viernes rojo y blanco...., 32. Barn Swallow (immature), 33. Solitude, 34. DSC01710, 35. Random thoughts 万千丝絮, 36. Rose in the garden
Created with fd's Flickr Toys.
Dissonance.
When I shot this, I was fascinated by the effect of smooth, gentle waves on the reflection of an ordered, repeating structure. The seemingly tranquil undulations wreak havoc on the rigid iron railings.
The visual interaction provides a metaphor for apparently graceful, passivity that disturbs immovable, strength.
I haven't altered this image other than to adjust contrast and levels to give some pop. The abstraction is created by a natural phenomena.
© All my images are copyright. Please respect copyright.
Thank you.
Can't be forced. Blind until the big bang.
Model: Johannes
Photo: lauragrafie
Blog. - lauragrafie.wordpress.com/
Instagram. - www.instagram.com/lauragrafie/
KenFM. - KenFM.de
News at: www.zerohedge.com/
“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.
Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism.
Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.
Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.
As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.”
In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure.
In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.”
Neil Postman.
Letting go ----- Surrendering ----- Passivity
Suspension ----- Acceptance ----- Renunciation ----- Patience
New point of view ----- Contemplation ----- Inner harmony
The wild legacy of Rome has sprouted
tall fiery children who leap from ground
sowed thoroughly with shark's teeth
Ya! shout the encouraging ones;
'break the fishing nets as if they were arrow shafts over your knee'
Listen! whispers the dangling coquettes;
'are you kissing my lips
or feeling yourself kissing my lips'
Fire! hiss innocently the fascinated boys, studying the flickering veladora candles
slow patient breath... exhales the sincere lover... slow patient breath;
my sex voluptuously breathing inside you
I am walking on a thread which seems to tie itself about my feet
hence I have begun walking on my feet -
and now I seem to be tying my legs into knots.
I find myself looking deeper still into the rich Chinese mirrors
that I had fashioned for my lover at one time:
I see myself clearly enough in the elsewhere...
where what is brown is my laboring body
what is green are the hills made fertile under my hands
what is golden are the life-fragrant kisses of my children
what is the deepest blue are the sincere eyes of my loving
the seduction of a Chinese mirror however is - simply -
that the more one dreams inside it
the more entangled you become in the dreaming of the dream;
tying your walking legs in knots...
and collapsing over and into yourself
So I could regale you with softening conversation
of the exotic or the perfect or the glorious,
I could engulf your beautiful listening ear with my warm sincere tongue;
but in your elegant passivity I will become lost and overwhelmed -
thinking you are listening to me because you love me
and from there diving - without saving a breath - unto You;
But Woman! you are not the luxurious reception of a fertile life-bearing sea
but rather the cold scorching expanse of stratospheric sky
Salut!
this is not a lamento nor a provocatio
Actually this is the allowing a feeling to bloom that I allow myself to say:
Inside these lips and behind these eyes,
running through these sturdy legs,
and
carressing your pleasures with these hands
are the tall fiery children
born in my fertile soil
from the wild legacy
of our entangling Roman love affair.
Just Beyond Yourself
∞ ༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈┈┈┈•༶∞
Just beyond
yourself.
It’s where
you need
to be.
Half a step
into
self-forgetting
and the rest
restored
by what
you’ll meet.
There is a road
always beckoning.
When you see
the two sides
of it
closing together
at that far horizon
and deep in
the foundations
of your own
heart
at exactly
the same
time,
that’s how
you know
it’s the road
you
have
to follow
That’s how
you know
it’s where
you
have
to go.
That’s how
you know
you have
to go.
That’s
how you know.
Just beyond
yourself,
it’s
where you
need to be.
🍂
The sound of the bell is the call to prayer, to depth, to a greater context than the one you are inhabiting. The blackbird is the world calling to you as it finds you now and perhaps, even more importantly, as it finds itself, with no need for improvement. Hearing the bell and hearing the blackbird, at one and the same time, is the encapsulation of a way through all our present difficulties in this polarized, conflict-ridden world. In fact, it may represent the essence of contemplation, not as passivity or removal from engagement, but bringing together that simultaneous sense of intimacy and distance that all human beings feel at one and the same time in one physical experience. We live at that crossroads of intimacy and distance in a marriage, in a work, and indeed, just walking across the park. Every day we are constantly trying to eliminate distance or create it in our lives, we are constantly trying to create intimacy or run a hundred miles from it; our unhappiness lies in constantly choosing between the two. The image says there is (a) way to hold both by understanding the essence of our identity as always being at that crossroads, that the foundational miracle of human incarnation is the ability to experience and hold them both together at one and the same time.
You are irretrievably alone, and you also belong to others and to the world in ways you cannot ever fully comprehend. Both are true, and letting that meeting place come alive inside you is where good poetry and perhaps more importantly the life human beings have wanted for themselves since the beginning of conscious time become a real possibility.
Conversation is the meeting between what you think is you and what you think is not you. Work, like marriage, can feel like drudgery and imprisonment. That is an option for us in both cases. The poetry is an invitation to actually be courageous and step out of that imprisonment and start to shape your destiny again.
All those years
forgetting
how easily
you can belong
to everything
simply by listening.
David Whyte
THE MYSTERY OF THE VEIL
The Veil can be thick or transparent, unique or multiple; it veils or it unveils, violently or gently, suddenly or progressively; it includes or it excludes, and it separates thus two regions, one inward and one outward. All these modes are manifested in the microcosm as well as in the macrocosm, or in the spiritual life as well as in the cosmic cycles.
The impenetrable Veil covers from sight something that is too sacred or too intimate; the veil of Isis suggests the two relationships, since the body of the Goddess coincides with the Holy-of-Holies.
The "sacred" refers to the divine aspect of "Majesty"; the "intimate" for its part refers to "Beauty"; blinding Majesty and intoxicating Beauty.
The transparent Veil, on the contrary, communicates both the sacred and the intimate, like a sanctuary that opens its door, or a bride who gives herself, or a bridegroom who welcomes and takes possession.
When the Veil is thick, it hides the Divinity: it is made of the forms that constitute the world, but these are also the passions within the soul; the thick Veil is woven out of sensorial phenomena around us and passional phenomena within us; and be it noted that an error is a passional element to the extent that it is serious and that man is attached to it.
The thickness of the Veil is both objective and subjective, in the world and in the soul: it is subjective in the world in so far as our minds fail to penetrate to the essence of forms, and it is objective in the soul in the sense that passions and thoughts are phenomena.
When the Veil is transparent, it reveals the Divinity: it is made of forms in so far as these communicate their spiritual contents, whether we understand them or not; in an analogous fashion, the virtues allow the Divine Qualities to shine through, while the vices indicate their absence, or their opposites, which comes to the same thing. The transparency of the Veil is both objective and subjective, which can be understood without difficulty after what has just been said; for if on the one hand forms are transparent (not in respect
of their existence but in respect of their messages), on the other hand it is our mind which makes them transparent by its penetration.
Transcendence thickens the Veil; immanence renders it transparent, either in the objective world or in ourselves, through our awareness of the underlying Spirit. From quite a different standpoint, however, the understanding of transcendence is a phenomenon of transparency, while on the contrary the brutish enjoyment of what is offered to us by virtue of immanence, is obviously a phenomenon of thickening.
There are iridescent silks in which two opposed colours appear alternately on the same surface, depending on the position of the material; this play of colours evokes cosmic ambiguity, namely the mixture of"nearness" and "distance" (we might also say of greatness and smallness) that characterizes the fabric of which the world is made and of which we ourselves are made. This brings us to the question of the subjective attitude of man before the objective ambiguity of the world.
The noble man, and consequently the spiritual man, sees in positive phenomena the substantial greatness and not the accidental smallness, but he is indeed obliged to discern smallness when it is substantial and when, in consequence, it determines the nature of the phenomenon.
The base man, on the contrary, and sometimes the simply worldly man, sees the accidental before the essential and gives himself over to the consideration of the aspects of smallness which enter into the constitution of greatness, but which cannot detract from its greatness in the least degree, except in the eyes of the man who is himself made of smallness.
The two iridescent colours, it goes without saying, can have an exclusively positive meaning: activity and passivity, rigour and gentleness, strength and beauty, and other complementarities.
The universal Veil comprises a play of contrasts and shocks, and also and even more profoundly and more really, a play of harmony and love.
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Frithjof Schuon: Esoterism as Principle and as Way - The Mystery of the Veil
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Quoted in: The Essential Frithjof Schuon (edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)
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Image: Chakrasamvara and consort Vajravarahi
This powerful depiction of Chakrasamvara embracing his yogini consort Vajravarahi is a highly energized visualization, such as would have been experienced by an advanced tantric master. These are key deities in the Vajrayana system, uniting two of the most powerful ideas in esoteric Buddhism, wisdom, embodied in Vajravarahi, and compassion, the essence of Chakrasamvara. His name, which translates as Circle of Bliss, embodies the powerful union of these two fundamentals tenets of Buddhism.