Don't Tell My Heart...My Achy Breaky Heart...

I had another one of those interestingly insightful dreams last night.  I was in a room with my family, and there was an enormous black snake in the middle.  It was sort of a pet, and we all loved it like part of the family.  My cat, Checkers, came into the room, and even though I knew Checkers and the snake were used to each other, I put her in another room so the snake wouldn't eat her.

Checkers probably represents my soul (she's my soul mate after all) but I can't figure out the snake.  I'm a big fan of snakes, I think they're cool.  So, I don't think it represents some sort of evil in my life, trying to devour my soul.  That would probably be a cool story though.  I'm more of a fan of snakes being messengers and symbols of wisdom and change.  Still, I'm not sure how to interpret the fact that I love this change, but am afraid it's going to eat my soul.  This just sounds more angsty than I tend to give myself credit for.  Haha.  But, it's a lot of fun to think about!  Maybe I'll get a job as a dream interpreter someday!  Tell me your dreams, I'll sort them out for you.

I spent my morning taking a nice long trip down memory lane.  I'm not really sure how it happened, but I stumbled upon an iTunes collection of 90s country music!  Best. Thing. Ever!  We're talking: Achy Breaky Heart, Boot Scootin Boogie, Strawberry Wine, The Grundy County Auction Incident, Cowboy Take Me Away!  Gah!  :-D  

I know I know I know.  You're all too good for country music.  It's dumb, it's nonsense, it's below you.  Fine.  I love it and I'm not ashamed.  Even Achy Breaky.  Love that one too.  I grew up with this stuff.  My family knows a lot of the people who wrote and sang these songs.  I haven't heard most of these songs in years and years and years.  Memories and joy just came bubbling up as I listened to them.  Ray Charles always said the reason he loved country music so much was because of the stories the songs tell.  Some of these stories were mine!  Hearing my past sung to me just made me so happy, I danced and danced around in my room.  

She used to tie her hair up in ribbons and bows,

Sign her letters with X's and O's,

She's got a picture of her mama in heels and pearls.

She's gonna make it in her daddy's world.

She's an American girl.

She's an American girl.

--X's and O's (An American Girl) by Trisha Yearwood (who lives 5 min from my parents.)

I was thinking today about an old Cherokee story.  A young man goes to his grandfather for advice. "Grandfather," he says, "sometimes it seems to me there are two wolves inside of me, fighting to take over my heart.  One is hatred, the other is love.  One is anger, the other is forgiveness.  Please, tell me grandfather, which of these wolves will win?"  The grandfather in the story simply smiles and answers "The one you feed."

Then I put on a Zencast lecture, and the opening lines told this story.  Funny how that happens.  It's an important story, and the lecture put a nice spin on it.  The four ways of Correct Effort are: 1) The effort to prevent the arising of unhelpful states of mind before they arise, 2) The effort to abandon unhelpful states of mind after they have arisen, 3) The effort to cultivate helpful states of mind that have not yet arisen and 4) The effort to maintain those helpful states of mind which have arisen.

I like that.  It's not good or bad.  It's helpful or unhelpful.  :-)  Very...useful. :-P

I pulled a muscle in Wushu last night.  It didn't bother me much today, until I got to Wushu.  Then it really really hurt, so I had to take it easy.  Which  is no fun.  :-(  But there were some really amazing advanced students I've never seen before there tonight, so I got to watch them while I was taking it easy.  :-D

You can tell your ma, I moved to Arkansas

You can tell your dog to bite my leg

Or tell your brother Cliff, his fist can tell my lips

He never really liked me anyway.

But don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart

I just don't think it'd understand

And if you tell my heart, my achy breaky heart

It might blow up and kill this man.

--Achy Breaky Heart, by Billy Ray Cyrus (hee hee hee)

Just a Thought

Watching a show about Egyptian pyramids used to be so much simpler.  Now, when I watch the part about the young peasant man who stumbled upon the Pyramid texts, the oldest Egyptian inscriptions we have, instead of thinking "Wow, that must have been an amazing feeling, to stare at these long lost texts in the flickering torchlight."  I now think "Oh man, I'm supposed to translate that bit there over the door for Wednesday!"

I can't say this is an unpleasant complication.  :-)

He'll Probably Just Ride Away

Well, my two weeks of half-vacation are over.  My two other professors, who've been off to Egypt for the past two weeks, are back.  Coptic was this morning, and I was a bit worried since I haven't looked at it since the first class.  Fortunately, neither had the professor, :-P, so no one was behind.  Coptic is one of the coolest sounding languages I've ever heard.  It sounds so different from European languages.  We giggled through most of the class.  The word for 'the king' (in Coptic, the definite article is just stuck on the beginning of the noun, so it becomes one word: theking) is perro.  Which means 'dog' in Spanish.  So, everyone thought that was hilarious, and so read 'perro' with a Spanish accent every time it came up in the text.  This only got funnier as class went on, which meant the accents just got more ridiculous.  Even the professor was laughing with us!  This class definitely going to be awesome!

I went to Lipsius for lunch, and took a few minutes to myself to read a few more chapters of Mr. Y.   Tyler, drop what you are doing, read this book, and talk to me about it.  That is an order!  :-)  It's a fabulous book (and I think Tyler will particularly like it.)  Think: Gaiman-esque universe, only it's not written by Gaiman.  Scarlet Thomas is the author's name, and I don't think she's as good as Gaiman (though, frankly, it'll be hard to convince me anyone is as good as Gaiman!) but she uses his (or, ok, a similar) universe.  I can't describe this book though.  It would sound too weird.  Too nuts.  But it totally rocks!

After a day of running around, printing (with some mishap, since I tried to print a 4 page document and got charged for printing 400!) and organizing, I went to Wushu.  I am proud to announce that I'm basically the senior student of the beginner's group.  Not technically, since we technically don't have hierarchy within the hierarchy of beginners, intermediate, advanced.  But the teacher asked me to go first in line (and even said that my example of one move was prettier than his!) and asked me to lead the sword forms when he went to work with the intermediate kids.  :-D  

If I had the time, I'd completely throw myself into Wushu, and just do it all the time.  It's physically and mentally so rewarding.  I'd love to compete, and I'd love to possibly even win!  Who knows, maybe after this semester, or after this first year I'll be able to dive in a little deeper.  

I came home and chatted for a long time on Skype with a friend of mine who's currently in Antigua (I love that I can say that!)  It was such a beautiful, and helpful, and amazing conversation, I just thought I'd say thanks, in blog form.  :-)  Thank you, brother.  I'm glad Allah shared you with me!  :-D

Lolpod: On the way home from Wushu, I biked past a little patch of deep grass.  There were ducks searching for food in the grass, but it was so high, you could only see their little heads pop up and then vanish again.  It was like a video game.  Duck head.  Grass. Duck head.  Duck head.  Grass.  :-D

In other news:  I got a craving for Nashville, so I downloaded "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys" by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.  I love this song, because a) it's totally country, I mean, classic, and b) my dad was there with the song writer (Ed Bruce) the day that song hit #1 on the charts.  I feel like I know that song personally.

Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys

Don't let 'em pick guitars and drive in old trucks

Let 'em be doctors and lawyers and such.

Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys

They'll never stay home and they're always alone

Even with someone they love.

--Waylon and Willie (lyrics by Ed Bruce)

We Might Not Land on the Sun...

I had a dream the other night that I was being kicked out of my own house, in Nashville.  Not by my parents, by someone else who I had let in.  They took over, along with their whole family, and then asked me to leave.  My dad was there and he calmly put his hand on my shoulder and led me out.  I was so sad, so hurt, but I knew it was all going to be ok.  I guess I've been kicked out of my own soul, somehow, into something new.  :-)  Cleansing dreams are always best.

Today was rather slow.  I read a bit more of Mr. Y (which remains creepily relevant) and listened to some more lectures on Buddhism.  I also went outside and enjoyed another painfully gorgeous day.  September is doing everything it can to melt my heart to this place.  It's working, I have to say!  Sunlight, ah, sunlight.  And that biting autumn air, with this slight hint of orange everywhere you go.  

In the afternoon I met up with Julia and Silvia and we took a train to Haarlem.  We wandered around the city for a few hours, chatting.  I really really enjoy both of these girls.  A lot.  They're both so fun and interesting.  We had some coffee, and some suiker waffels (sugar waffles) and headed home.  We then went to Silvia's apartment, which is next door, and Julia made some amazing fish curry.  I chatted with Silvia's roommate Jason (Canada) about the upcoming election and about Canadian culture.  Then we all discussed Knight Rider and the A-Team.  :-P  

Now I'm home and sort of dreading going to sleep.  Because I have to get up and go to class tomorrow.  And translate, and and and.  Yurgh.  Mostly I just want to sit and read my interesting books, and talk to my interesting friends, and maybe even write an interesting paper!  

I'm suddenly craving Zora Neal Hurston, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou.  Women like them.  I need to hear the words of women who understand the depths of pain and the expanses of hope. 

"I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots.  Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and a sword in my hands." --Zora Neal Hurston

Ps. The End of Mr. Y

The book is also just physically cool:

From Time Travel to Time Travel

Another gorgeous day in my little town.  Since I didn't get to bed until way late, I didn't actually get out of bed until noon!  :-P  I had a dream that I found the Tardis (the time machine from Doctor Who) in my backyard but when I opened it, it was just a tool shed, smaller inside than out.  I was extremely disappointed, and turned around to go.  But suddenly the door opened again, and the Doctor was there, and he took me inside, and everything was good again.  It was a great dream.

When I did get up, I got out, and hit the market.  Bought some dried apricots, but mostly wandered around, enjoying it all.  The smells, the music, the laughter, the sunlight, the smiling people.  People here smile a lot.  :-)  I also went to H&M and got a few more long sleeved shirts since it's cool now, and I'm still not prepared for cold weather.  I did buy a new scarf  at the market though.  I just thought it was entirely too cute, with its little blue bobbles.  :-)

After spending a few hours out and about, I headed home and met up with Sophia (USA.)  She was one of the girls I met last weekend at tea with Jennifer.  She came by and we had coffee (with my new cofee pot!) and talked for a while about everything from boys to string theory.  :-)  

I've been really impressed with the conversations I've been having of late.  They're almost always about really interesting things.  Politics to religion.  Good stuff.  I've also noticed that when speaking one on one most people bring up really personal things really quickly: sadness and loneliness, that sort of thing.  I suppose it's just the life of the Erasmus student.  I didn't experience this in Berlin.  I was expecting to arrive and just sit down and cry, but it just never came.  I suppose I was lonely now and then, and there were times I was sad, of course, but I never felt the sort of thing people are describing.  I'm fascinated by this, and I love listening to people talk about it all.

Sophie and I swapped books.  She's going to Belgium soon and wanted a nice easy read.  I let her have a murder novel mom brought and left.  She left me with a book called "The End of Mr. Y"  So far this book is freakily relevant.  Like, freaky.  When we met last weekend she said I should read it.  I'm only on chapter 6, but it's pretty awesome so far.  It's about a girl writing her Ph.D about an obscure author who wrote about "experiments of the mind."  She finds a copy of his rarest work ("The End of Mr. Y")  which just so happens to be cursed.  Everyone who reads it, dies.  :-)  

So far not much has happened, but I have a feeling it's going to be insanely interesting.  I mean, the main character, Ariel, at first wants to study theoretical physics because so much of the description of things is metaphor.  Her entire thesis is about "thought experiments"; ways in which people search for metaphors to explain the Universe.  How's that for appropriate!  :-D

26th September -- Late Update

I didn't manage to update yesterday, so I thought I'd toss in a quick one here.

The weather yesterday was breathtakingly beautiful.  I didn't even need a jacket!  Sunny!  :-D  Perfect. 

I got a meditation cushion and a tea pot.  A coffee pot too!  And lots of tea.  Including lapsang souchon, Tyler.  ;-)

I thought I was working the Common Room, but it was ISN-I's week, so I talked with Marijn (the ISN-I guy working) and translated for a while.  

I went to Game Night, and was thrilled to see I knew at least half the people there already.  I watched them play poker and Monopoly, and Spoons.  Then Illaria and Sylvia (Italy) stopped in, and Julia came over and the three of us talked about love, life, etc.  :-)  

Then we went salsa dancing at a club near the station.  Julio and Miguel were there, so we danced and danced.  Also met a Hungarian guy named Janosh, and we danced and danced.  It was a pretty great evening.  :-)  Though the social dance culture here, or maybe just with Salsa, is much much different from Lindy Hop culture.  

Then I headed to the Herengracht (the other international student house) for a debate party.  The presidential debate started around 3am here.  Bleh.  But someone organized a pretty rockin party in the common room of Herengracht with lots of food and lots of people.  Good times, good times.

I then came home and collapsed in bed, exhausted.  Always a good end to a day.  :-)

I Consider This Folly, And Yet...

Man, I'm looking a bit tired here.  I was up too late dating everyone so speedily.  :-)  Woke up ENTIRELY too early too.  Egyptian.  It all went well, of course.  I'm good at this stuff.  

I had a wonderful lunch at Lipsius, and got to chat with Muhammad a bit more.  In French this time!  This man is amazing!

I then got coffee and sat on the bridge over the canal by my library.  The sun was shining, my coffee was warm in my hands, the air was brisk around me.  The sun shone off the canal, and lit up another, beautiful bridge.  I'll have to post a picture so you can get an idea of this beauty.  There were even lilies blooming in the water below me!  

I closed my eyes and Just. Let. Go.  

The rest of the day wasn't as important as this moment.  I met with my group to work on a project.  I went to the Common Room and translated some more.  I had a meeting, then another.  I came home. 

While in the library I was amazed at myself.  Not too long ago, I would have cherished each book, hungry for the knowledge inside them.  Today, I was unattached to them.  I understand why people want to organize the details, but I no longer feel I need to join them.  "Why," I thought to myself, "have I cherished these tiny matters over the small things the Universe is always showing me?"  

I never thought I'd let go of my love of books and my love of knowledge.  But I suppose I have.  And nothing is lost to me.

I used to delight in the details of this world.

Spending my days pouring over ancient tomes.

Now I consider this folly.

And yet,

I can sit for hours in silence

Staring at sunlight shattered on the flowing river.

--Poem I wrote today

Go, Go, Speed Dating

Phew.  Long day.  It started out a bit dull, with Egyptian class.  Actually, class was super interesting because we talked a bit about Egyptian conceptions of time.  This is something I might just consider for a thesis.  That or something to do with borders, gates, or other in between places.  I'm a big fan of the in between places.

Either way, about midday I had something of a meltdown.  Basically, I'm just plain frustrated with learning all this detailed junk about Egyptian language.  I don't see where it's all going.  Talked to mom.  She said I don't have to see where it's going.  I should just go.  Again, it just helps so much to have someone else say the things you keep saying to yourself. Thanks mom.

After that I had no problem translating Egyptian for a few more hours.  And I enjoyed it!  I'm beginning to set a fire in myself again.  :-)  I went to the Lipsius building, which is sort of like the University center.  It has a cafeteria, a cafe, classrooms, labs, offices, stuff.  I go there because there's coffee and food, and lots of noise, which I need to study.  But I also go there for Muhammad.

Muhammad is the dish washer in the cafeteria.  When I first started going there, I didn't realize you're supposed to dump out all the food and trash before you hand in the tray.  But Muhammad always just smiled at me and took my tray, no problem.  The other day I finally had a conversation with him.  He's an older man from Morocco, but he's lived in Germany, so we spoke in German!  Such an interesting man!  

Truthfully, I've been fascinated by him for a while, because while he works, he sings, or he whistles.  You have never heard such beautiful music!  His whistling alone was enough to stop me cold the first time I heard it.  I really thought it was coming from a radio or something!  Gorgeous.  And he's just always doing it!  Today you could hear him all over the cafeteria, singing these amazing, lilting Moroccan songs.  And whistling Love Me Tender!  :-D

Tonight was ISN-I's Speed Dating event!  I've never done speed dating before, but it was really a lot of fun!  We met at Einstein, and the boys sat at tables, and the girls went around and talked until they rang the bell.  Then we moved on.  I met a lot of really interesting people, and had lots of interesting chats.  It's pretty amazing how much information you can find out about someone in 2 min!  I don't really know how anyone ever tries to use speed dating as a way to actually start dating someone.  Then again, I'm almost certain I'll see everyone I met tonight again at some social event or the other.  That's the life of the student.  Maybe if I weren't a student and thought I might never see some of these people again, who knows.

In other news, I finished Avatar today.  I'll have to do a separate post about it sometime.  That show is just great, and exactly what I needed at this stage in my life.  :-)

Libra Horoscope for week of 25 September, 2008

Against all odds, you are finally finding a way to quit that nagging "addiction." You're shedding a dependency that isn't worthy of you. You're weaning yourself from a passion that hasn't brought out the best in you. Congratulations on your hard, meticulous work, you epic hero, you. In the aftermath of your exacting struggle, please don't immediately initiate another obsessive relationship with a new mania. Enjoy the benefits of being blank and clean and empty for a while.

www.freewillastrology.com

Wushu, And So Can You

I know, I look a little rough here.  :-)  I've been working hard.  I slept entirely too late because I was having this strange dream about the move we learned in Wushu last night.  I wasn't doing it right, in the dream, because I was supposed to be throwing fire while jumping, and I just wasn't able to create any fire, so I was getting a bit restless.  :-)

I went to the Lipsius mensa (cafeteria) for lunch.  (They had corn soup and bami blocks again!  Woot!) After I ate I worked on some translations for an hour or so.  Then I picked up my bike from the shop and headed to the Common Room, where I translated for a few more hours.

The first text I translated today (Pyramid Text, spell 252) was super easy.  I almost didn't need the dictionary.  I worked for freakin ever on the Lebensgeschichte des Wnj (Life Story of Weni) but I only sort of managed to get one paragraph almost translated.  Urgh.  This is becoming a real problem here.  I'm beyond stressed about this all.  Mostly, it comes down to motivation.  I simply don't have it.  I want to do well, I just can't get myself to focus on this stuff.  Argh.  It'll all come.  I'm just out of academic shape, it'll come back with practice.  Either way, Grace and I ordered pizza and ate it with John from Ireland in the Common Room.  

Tai Chi was amazingly dull, unfortunately.  The normal teacher wasn't there, and the woman who was there spoke very very quietly.  There were also a bunch of beginners, so we didn't get very far.  Wushu, however, was pretty awesome.  For some reason we were all just really into it, and we, the regulars, pushed ourselves really hard.  I think we were all super sore from training yesterday.  I know I was.  

At the end, there was this one last spinning kick move.  And I just didn't think I could do it.  My legs were jelly, and I had almost fallen down a few times just jumping.  So I thought, ok, just give it your best, and you probably won't fall down.  I was actually rather scared that I'd fall.  You're supposed to jump, spin around, and, while spinning, kick your left hand with your right foot!  So I took a deep breath, focused, and jumped, spun, kicked, stuck it.  I mean, it was beautiful.  High and straight, powerful.  It even made this gorgeous, loud, smack.  Everyone in line behind me was like "Wow, nice!"  :-D  Amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it.  

If I look at Egyptian in the same way, I can do much more than I expect.  I know it.  :-)

Give it Your All

Today went perfectly.  I woke up and sat for about 20min on my balcony, feeling the sun on my right hand, the cool shadows on my left, listening to the wind in the trees, and the leaves swirling in the courtyard.  A perfect start to my day.  

I then listened to a lecture about Buddhism that talked about three different paths.  The path of development, the path of letting go, and the path of no path.  Extremely interesting stuff.

I spent most of the day sitting on the balcony, burning incense, listening to classical music, and translating Egyptian.  I'm still fighting some bit of terror in myself that causes me to completely freeze up when it comes to doing work.  This goes back to my bachelor's thesis, which was a major blow to my self-esteem, and a big factor in my decision to leave scholarship.  The time, however, has come to let go of this.  So, I pushed through, and got most of the text translated more or less!  :-)

Wushu tonight was great.  I've noticed that I'm in much better shape than I was just a few weeks ago.  And that's just from working out on Monday and Tuesday (4.5hrs a week all together.)  I mean, I always take stairs, and bike etc. but I feel like I should be doing a lot more to be feeling this good, and getting this flexible.  Not that I'm complaining. :-)  I still plan on doing more.  I'm going to buy a practice sword from my Tai Chi teacher tomorrow. :-P

My bike is currently in the shop (chain needs tightening) so I had to walk to and from Wushu.  Jonthan walked me home.  I mention this because I think Jonathan is a fascinating person, and just further proof that I am an interesting person magnet.  I'm not exactly sure what he studies, but he was telling me he had to write an article about a recent literary contest.  I do know he spent some time in Japan, and was, while there, a member of a boy band.  Jonathan is a transexual, and was actually born a girl.  He'll be starting up his hormone treatments soon.  He looks 13, but is actually 23.  He's Dutch, but speaks English really well.  My favorite part is he talks just like Eddy Izzard.  He has the same accent, and same rhythm of speech, everything.  Just thought you should know I am friends with a transexual, Japanese boy band version of Eddy Izzard.  Beat that!  :-P

Now I'm so tired I can barely keep my eyes open.  I worked so hard in Wushu tonight.  We were learning a move called 'the butterfly', which is really cool, and flying, and hard.  And I just wasn't getting it, and I tried, and the teacher stopped me and said "Amy, I think you can do much better."  Which just thrust me into this hyper-focused place.  I finally figured out the movement, but everything we did I was just focused.  110% the whole time.  Felt great!  Feels great!  :-D

The teacher has apparently been thinking I was Russian.  Haha.

I Sleep to Dream, And Take My Waking Slow

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling.  What is there to know?

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

--Theodore Roethke, "The Waking"

Sometimes instead of getting songs in my head, I get poems.  Though, I remembered the first line as being "I sleep to dream, and take my waking slow."  I suppose this was in my head because that was my morning.  I woke from some sort of dream, but stayed in that place between the dreaming and the waking worlds for a long time.  It's a great poem.  I do learn by going where I have to go.

My day was good.  Watched a bit more Avatar.  Listened to some lectures about Zen Buddhism.  There was a minor ISN crisis that was completely my fault, but it was easily solved.  On Friday I signed up a few people for the Dutch courses that start Monday.  Then people started coming in for the Game Night, asking me questions, then the Game Night started, and Monopoly happened, and then it was time to go home, etc. etc.  And I forgot to contact the teacher.  Which means there were  a few students who didn't know at 2pm on Sunday where there classes, which start at 9am on Monday were to be held.  Oops!  Not very responsible of me!  But, I called the teacher, and he came by to get the money, and it was all good, no worries.  

The big excitement of my day was tea with Jennifer and two girls from her art history program, Mary and Sophia.  We drank loads of tea, and ate loads of cookies, and we talked about a little bit of everything.  Politics (mostly about Sarah Palin, about whom I will probably post soon), religion (I think Mary and Sophia sort of think I'm a bit flaky, haha), and even the quarter life crisis.  Good times all around.  It was just an afternoon of contentment.  A nice hot cup of tea (or 4) great conversation, beautiful weather outside, sunlight in the window.  Life as it is being lived!

Jennifer and her family (Sören and their daughter Kaya) have the COOLEST apartment!  It's HUGE and has huuuuge windows, and overlooks the canal.  They even have a hidden ladder that leads up to this sort of attic (looks like a barn) which is where the bedrooms are.  I'm so jealous!  I mean, it's a two bedroom apartment.  I could share that apartment with another person, and only pay about €30 more than I'm paying right now....  Which is sort of sad.

Today (and every 21. September) is UN International Day of Peace.  There were ceremonies and celebrations in Amsterdam and Den Haag, but I didn't make it to any of them.  I lit a little incense and meditated on peace.  Haha, my own flaky way of doing what I can.  Maybe next year I'll be able to do more than just send out positive energy.  :-)

For now I'm going to go into the little extra room I have off of my balcony and practice my Tai Chi and Wushu forms (ok, maybe the girls were right about me....)  I've been considering changing the empty room into a meditation room.  All I have to do really is put a blanket or something over the window to the hallway, and I have another, mostly private room.  I'll have to see what Laura and Matteo think about it, and I'll have to hope that the staff here don't mind that I'm using the room.  I don't think anyone will have any problems though.  :-)

I'm happy.  Things aren't perfect, but there is peace inside me again in a way there hasn't been for a long long time.  

Why do we wait

So long upon the marble steps, blood

Falling from our open wounds? and why

Do our black faces search the empty sky?

Is there something we have forgotten? some precious thing

We have lost, wandering in strange lands?

There was a day, I remember now,

I beat my breast and cried, "Wash me God,

Wash me with a wave of wind upon 

The barley; O quiet One, draw near, draw near!"

--Arna Bontemps, from "Nocturne at Bethesda"

Natuurlijk

Alhamduillah, today was beautiful!  Another gorgeous day!  Argh!  :-D

I met up with Judy, the Sri-Lankan-Italian I met yesterday, and we went to the market.  Yay market day!  I bought some serious veggies, including sweet potatoes!  Yum! (Yam!)  We then went up to her apartment and made some amazing pasta.  I'm generally a pretty simple pasta person. 

 A little tomato sauce, toss in some pesto, maybe a mushroom or two.  Basta.  Not that Judy made anything complicated, it was just much more...sophisticated.  It was just pasta, cream and bacon, but it was super tasty.  Like, restaurant-style good.  She also made this veggie mix of zucchini, eggplant and onions that was out of this world.  So impressed.  :-)  (Note to readers: 95% of the time I'm a vegetarian, but now and then, like when someone cooks for me, a little meat is simply necessary.)

I then went back home and decided not to do any work.  I'm SO stressed out about my class work, that I've created a sort of mental block.  Which is unhelpful, and completely unnecessary.  I'm blowing it all out of proportion.  So I said, nope, no work, just fun.  So I watched a bunch of the Nickelodeon show Avatar.  If you've never heard of this show, you should probably go watch it.  (Yahoo Video, man.)  It's a beautiful crossroads of Eastern and Western culture.  There is much wisdom to be gained from this show.  :-)

Later on, Julia and Judy came over and I made some rockin' curried veggies.  Haha, take that kitchen!  :-)  We chatted and ate, and snacked on some gingerbread squares, and life was good.  Then we met up with Mona (Germany), and Bas (Netherlands!), two people from Julia's program.  We went to a very nice (gezellig) little bar across the street called De Bonte Kou (The Colorful Cow) and chatted for a few hours.

Lolpod:  Leaving the bar we noticed that there were flashing multi-colored lights and thumping music coming from the nearby church.  By "church" I mean what most Americans would think of as a "cathedral."  We checked it out.  It was a wedding, complete with security guards, and a fire-lit path to the entrance.  Just as we were taking pictures, the church doors opened, and a Rolls Royce drove OUT of the church!!  :-o

In other news:  I got an e-mail from George.  George is a dancer from New York who stayed with me during a dance weekend a while ago.  He's so amazingly cool.  Like, awesome.  Times a lot.  I haven't talked to him since the dance weekend, which has been a year and a half or more ago.  Naturally, (because this is just the way my life works) he now lives in Amsterdam and is trying to set up a weekly swing dance!  :-D  

Thank you, Universe.  

Game Night

Well, I didn't do a diary-style update yesterday.  It was a good day though.  If you read my post from yesterday you will see I had something of a breakthrough.  It brought me so much peace, and a renewed sense of purpose.  :-)

The day itself: Class, then meeting with the prof, which went really well.  Then lunch, and mucho work in the computer labs and such.  The weather was absolutely perfect.  Possibly the most beautiful day here so far.  So I took a few pictures of the Rapenburg canal and enjoyed as much of the day as I could.  I parked my bike and walked around the city.  I ran into Helen (Scotland) and we chatted in the streets for quite a while.  I had coffee with Julia.  Then I had the ISN-R board meeting.  Afterwards I hung out with Yohann and a friend of his from France who is here in Leiden to get a job.

Today was considerably slower, but still good.  The entire day was dedicated to organization.  I have a lot of work to do for ISN-R and nothing was together.  So I headed to the Common Room before it opened and worked.  When the CR did open, I kept on working, though I also got to meet some new people.  Tonight was the game night, so at seven people started coming in.  Julia was one of the first.  And Vincent!  Vincent is one of my, oh, 3? 4? actual Dutch friends.  I met him in Wushu, but apparently he's also on the Common Room committee!  So it was good to hang out with him outside of Wushu, where we could actually talk.  I also met Judy who lives in my building.  Her parents are from Sri Lanka, but she was born and grew up in Italy.  She and I are meeting up tomorrow to check out the market because she hasn't been yet.

The game night was a lot of fun.  There were a lot more people there than I had anticipated.  My group played Monopoly.  Vincent was pretty vicious, and when Simon (Slovenia) showed up, there was war.  Judy very calmly and quietly beat us all though.  :-D  There was also Kia (Iran) who studies math and showed up to the game night because he is interested in studying the probabilities in poker and other games!  Note to self....

In other news: I have started a new blog!  Check it out at 20somethingzen.blogspot.com.  :-)

The Caterpillar's Dilemma, The Butterfly's Delight

When I moved away from home in 2002, a chapter of my life closed forever. My childhood had been over for a while, and my adolescence was finally leaving me. I stepped into a new and different stage of development. And I was afraid. I struggled against the change, even though I wanted it. I knew it was time to move on, to grow up, but I couldn't let go of many aspects of the person I had been. The first few months were very very difficult for me. And then, suddenly, one day in Decemeber of that year, I started meeting the people who would become my dearest friends. Suddenly I accepted the new stage of life, and I reveled in it. I learned and learned, and opened my heart and mind to the world, and let the world open up to me.

Graduating from college and moving back in with my parents marked another ending. I then spent a year sort of rexamining everything. Living with my family again brought back memories from my past lives; as a child, as a teenager, as a college student. This again was a difficult time for me, and for my family as well. Much happened that tested our strength and our happiness. I drew my family closely around me, and I pulled away from everyone else. I have seen this as a mistake because there were many people I love who were very hurt by my silence, and I made many wounds in my own spirit as well. But my mom saw it differently, and she explained this to me recently. She says this time I spent away from what I called life was a time of refreshment, a renewal of the awareness of who I am and where I come from, where I'm going. It wasn't a time of darkness, it was a time of reflection. A reset button, a unique opportunity for growth. The caterpiller in the cocoon.

Now I have begun the process of emerging. But I expected too much. I lacked patience with my transformation. I thought that the cocoon would instantly fall away, and I would be able to fly. When this didn't happen, I became afraid. I had not yet learned to be a butterfly. I saw (and still sometimes see) the world from the caterpillar's perspective. The caterpillar in me still mourns. It thinks, somehow, that something had to die, to disappear, to lose meaning, but the butterfly understands this isn't true. The caterpillar in me somehow misses the cocoon, but the butterfly knows to leave it hanging empty on the tree. The caterpillar can't imagine what it means to fly, because it never had wings. The butterfly remembers the taste of leaves, and delights in the nectar, which the caterpiller has never tasted.

Why am I telling you this? Why do I reveal so much of myself? I'm telling you because I am not ashamed of my transformation, and I'm no longer ashamed of my fear. I'm telling you because I know how many of you are going through this transformation right now (though I know that some of my most beloved readers have already been through this, and are now smiling sagely at the caterpillar's dilemma) and I know you are having a hard time. I have spoken recently with many of you, and you have expressed your fears, your sorrows, and especially your regrets. You think you are alone in this, but we are all filled with these things. I express this now because I want you to see how I handle this change, because I want you to follow me in letting go of fear, of regret and I want you to avoid the mistakes I made, and will make.  And I want you to help me when I do make mistakes. I also want you all to know there is no shame in feeling this way.

As one of you has pointed out, if you keep asking yourself the same questions, you will always get the same answers. Now is the time to ask someone else. You never know where people are on their journeys. You assume people understand how you feel, or you assume they don't want to, don't need to hear your sorrows. This isn't true. You can't expect others to carry your pain for you, but perhaps sharing your pain will help them let go of theirs.

We have all been caterpillars, but it's time to recognize our butterfly-selves, and let go of the cocoon that has nourished us. But don't let the caterpillar in you hasten the process. Your wings are still filling with the life that gives them strength. Have patience, my caterpillars, and soon we will all by flying!

Another Day

Apparently, I'm getting used to the Erasumus life.  Even though I didn't get t0 bed until almost 2 and had to wake up at 8am I'm not all that tired.  :-)  

Class turned out to be not as bad as feared.  Apparently, I was only supposed to have translated about 1/6 of what I thought had to, so it wasn't so bad.  The prof is also going really easy on me and the Portuguese student, Andre.  

Andre has a room in his apartment that will be free in December, and he wants me to move in.  It's super close to the faculty, and directly behind the Egyptian museum...plus it would be cool to have another Egyptian student in house.  Hmm, I suppose we'll see.

I spent much of the day printing and organizing and translating and reading texts, Egyptian and otherwise.  I took a nap in the common room before it opened.  I met with my Egyptian professor shortly to discuss grammar.  Dr. Hays, Andre and I will be meeting pretty regularly for the next little while to catch up on Egyptian.  We're going to translate The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor together.  :-)  I'm looking forward to it, though it will be difficult.

Julia came over tonight and we made some tasty curried veggies, watched a show about tiiiiny chameleons in Madagascar, and then talked and talked about life and politics, and whatever falls in between.  She's so great.  I also met two Greek girls who live on my floor (I've already forgotten their names!) who said they are planning to have a hall party sometime soon.  Awesome.  I never really see my neighbors, Laura and Matteo, anymore.  They're too busy being popular.  I swear, everytime I go to add a friend on Facebook, they're already friends with Laura and Matteo!  :-D

Lolpod:  I was coming out of the grocery store, and three girls rode by on their bikes.  Dressed like cows. Complete with masks.  I love this country.

The Layers

Amelia sent me this poem, and it resonated so strongly with me, that I felt it needed it's own post.

I have walked through many lives,

Some of them my own,

And I am not who I was,

Though some principle of being

Abides, from which I struggle not to stray.

When I look behind,

As I am compelled to look

Before I can gather strength

To proceed on my journey,

I see the milestones dwindling

Toward the horizon

And the slow fires trailing

From the abandoned camp-sites,

Over which scavenger angels

Wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe

Out of my true affections,

And my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled

To its feast of losses?

In a rising wind

The manic dust of my friends,

Those who fell along the way,

Bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn,

Exulting somewhat,

With my will intact to go

Wherever I need to go,

And every stone on the road

Precious to me.

In my darkest night,

When the moon was covered

And I roamed through wreckage,

A nimbus-clouded voice

Directed me:

"Live in the layers,

Not on the litter."

Though I lack the art

To decipher it,

No doubt the next chapter

In my book of transformations

Is already written.

I am not done with my changes. 

--Stanley Kunitz

Wushu in Blue

I should totally be in bed, since I have to get up for class at 8am.  But I want to write.  Today just feels so good.  It started out sort of difficult, however.  I realized just how behind I am in Egyptian.  First of all, I read the syllabus wrong, and found out that I had to translate 18 pages of Egyptian by tomorrow!! (And not in two weeks, like I thought.)  So I tried to translate, and instantly ran into trouble.  I haven't looked at Egyptian in almost two years!  I have forgotten so much!  And there's much I never learned at all.  So, I freaked out.  Because I have another 9 page translation for Thursday, that I've already tried to work on, and failed.  (It's in Old Egyptian, and much much harder.)  So, freak out.  I e-mailed the professor and he told me to just chill, and we'll meet tomorrow to discuss it.  I'm not worried about it now, but I know I have a really tough road ahead of me.  Fortunately, my Coptic class and my Mastaba class don't meet this week, so I have even more time to dedicate to refreshing my Egyptian.  :-)

I also had a great chat with Tyler about the nature of things.  :-)  Thanks man!

Julia always complains that she never gets any mail, so today I slipped a note with some chocolate into her mail box.  So she, in return, slipped a note with chocolate covered Kruidnoten (which are like little crunchy balls of Christmas...they taste like gingerbread and chocolate.  YUM.)  :-D

I spent most of my day in the Common Room hanging out with Grace, Joanjo, and a sort of crazy Italian guy named Giovanni (so far EVERY Italian boy I've met has been either a Giovanni or a Matteo.)  I can't describe how much I love the CR.  So many people coming in and out.  And since I'm in charge of answering the e-mails, I often get to meet people I've already been helping out.  :-)

Then I went to Tai Chi.  As expected it was quite amazing.  The movements are just so beautiful, and they feel so natural and pleasant.  The music was also very calming, and the teacher was awesome.  At some point she asked me "You do Wushu, don't you?"  which is as close as I've ever come to having someone say "Ahhhh, I see you know Kung-Fu!"  It's only a matter of time, really, before I meet some worthy opponent who will say these words I so long to hear.  :-P  

Wushu itself was also pretty great, but mostly because there were so many beginners this week that I actually had a chance to chat with some of the people in the class.  There's Vincent who studies Chinese, and Martin who studies medicine, and Jonathan, who was once in a Japanese boyband.  They're all Dutch, and we spoke this fabulous mixture of Dutch, English, and sometimes German.  Jansen, one of the Wushu guys I met in the early days, wants to practice his German, so he spoke German to me the whole time.  I also briefly met Valerie (though I could have sworn she said her name was Felony) who is another Chinese-Dutch student.  Vincent says he'll only speak Dutch to me.  Martin flips back and forth.  Jonathan prefers English.  So very beautifully complicated.  No one ever really knows what language we're speaking.  But I guess it doesn't matter.

After Wushu I came home for dinner, watched a bit of Pushing Daisies (BEST SHOW EVER) and then met up with Joanjo.  He lives upstairs and wanted me to proofread an English paper for him.  Afterwards we went to Proost, a student bar that offers 1€ beers on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  This is where the International kids go on these nights (Wednesday is Einstein night.)  I met up with Paul, an American guy who helps with ISN, and I also met another Matteo, another Italian guy whose name sounded like, but probably wasn't Frangipani, and Bertrand, from France.  There was also an Elena from France, who lives just down the hall from me.  We had a pretty great time chatting and laughing and such.  The romance language speakers had a pretty great time comparing their langauges (Spanish, Italian and French) though the music was a little too loud for me to understand anything they were saying.  Too bad.  

It was so very nice to be surrounded by interesting people again.  I get so much energy from meeting new people.  I'm glad so many are pouring into my life these days.  :-)

Much better

Oh man, today was SO much better.  The weather was once again heerlijk: 18º (62 or so) and sunny and just gorgeous.  So, again, I got out amongst 'em, but today it worked, and the sun was able to break through my little grey cloud and warm me up.  

I finally bit the bullet and bought a raincoat.  It's blue.  I wanted red, but it's a very very nice blue.  :-)  Naturally, it's supposed to be gorgeous all week!!  Haha, I should have bought this coat a long time ago. ;-)

I'm also now completely obsessed with Animal Planet.  I turned on the tv today for some company, and there was this show about whales and elephant seals on, and I just got sucked in.  Then there was a show called E-Vet Interns, which is just way cool.  It's a reality show about these vet interns who work in the best animal emergency room in America.  So interesting.  :-)

We did more sword forms in Wushu tonight.  I really want to do Wushu more often than just twice a week, but I don't have the time.  I'd like to compete at some point, truthfully.  Well, I really just want to perform, and if it takes competing to do it, well, cool.  :-)

<--- New Coat

 :-D

The Broken Road --14.Sept.08

I'm going to tell you something I rarely tell people.  Yesterday was a bad day.  I rarely talk about my "bad" days because they generally aren't all that bad.  No reason, I feel, to focus on the negative, when it usually isn't the focus of my day.  Even when I don't feel great, I find the positive things and choose to look at them until the negative things fade away.  And they always fade away.

But yesterday it was like I just couldn't see the silver lining no matter how hard I looked.  The weather was absolutely perfect, so I decided to get outside.  It was also Open Monument Day, so there were people and children and activities all over the city.  I really tried to throw myself into it all, but there was just a sadness in me that I couldn't fight.  Even the sunlight did nothing for me.  Finally, I decided to stop fighting it, and just let it all flow over me.  I have reason to feel sad.  When a lovely flame dies, smoke gets in your eyes.  But my pain yesterday went deeper than a broken heart.  It's not that I have so much sorrow in my life.  In fact, I am lucky to have very little sorrow.  But it was like every bit of sadness that has passed over my heart in the last year came back upon me.  So I let it flow and just cried and cried.

"Hoy sufro desde más abajo.  Hoy sufro solamente.  Me duelo ahora sin explicaciones." --César Vallejo

Then I called my mom.  :-)  Talking to my mom is always a good idea when I am sad.  I get my positive attitude from her and her experiences in life.  She was always so positive and never afraid of the future.  Sometimes I forget how much of my world view comes from my mother.  She really understands the way this Universe functions.  She doesn't use the vocabulary many people use; she knows nothing about religions other than her own.  She doesn't know about Buddhist philosophy, or Tao teachings, and I'm pretty sure she's never heard of the Bagavad Gita, but she gets it.  Made my journey much easier.  I am a lucky girl.

She told me to just cry and to just feel it all, and then to stop crying and move on.  She said sometimes you just can't fight sorrow, and shouldn't try to.  Sometimes it just takes hold and shakes you around, and all you can do is hold on. But she also reminded me not to forget that it'll all pass by in its own time.  This pain, she told me, is just leading me straight to where I need to be.  In life, in love, everything.  You can't change the past, she said, you can't see the future, so what's the point in worrying about any of it.  :-) 

Sometimes, even though you know something, it takes hearing someone else say it to make you feel it.  Thanks mom.

Every long lost dream, led me to where you are

Others who broke my heart, they were like northern stars

Pointing me on my way, into your loving arms

This much I know is true

That God blessed the broken road

That led me straight to you.

(The Broken Road -- Rascal Flatts)

Lady Lenka --The Show

The sun is hot in the sky just like a giant spotlight.

The people follow the sign and synchronize in time.

It's a joke.  

Nobody knows they've got a ticket to that show.

I'm just a little bit caught in the middle.

Life is a maze and love is a riddle.

I don't know where to go. Can't do it alone.

I've tried and I don't know why.

I'm just a little girl lost in the moment.

I'm so scared but I don't show it.

I can't figure it out. It's bringing me down.

I know I've got to let it go

And just enjoy the show.

The Big U

The Universe loves me, and wants me to be happy.  The time for this is now.  The Universe is being very clear on this.  It seems that every time I turned around today, the Big U was telling me it's all ok.  

Take this sign.  It says, "Just calm down.  No worries.  Everything will be alright."

Hidden away underneath the spiral staircase at the weighing house in Gouda was written: "It's no use crying over spilt milk."

There were stained glass windows in the city hall.  1 Corinthians 13 was written on them.  Starting with verse 4.  The entire room telling me to keep my heart open and my head up.  

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails.  But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.  When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.  Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.  

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.  (1 Cor. 13:4-13)

The Flying Spiders of Gouda

Susanne, her roommate Caitlin and I went to Gouda today.  You should know they make cheese there.  They're also known for sirup waffels and pipes.  Like the kind you smoke.  Apparently, they were renown for their pipes in the 15th century or something.  

Today was the open monument day, so all the things we wanted to see were free.  We checked out the city hall, and all the various churches, including the St. Jans Kerk which has stained glass from the 1500s that is considered the best in the Netherlands.  We checked out the old weighing house (now a cheese museum!) and a strange museum.  It had a pharmacy, a hospital kitchen, toys, a torture chamber, paintings, and lots and lots of spools of thread.  The girls especially found the spools of thread annoying, but I thought they were gorgeous.

The artist, whose name I can't find, was a Portuguese woman who lived in the Netherlands.  She did a lot of work that had to do with finding her own identity, as a Portuguese woman, as a Dutch woman, just as a woman.  The spools of thread were, in my opinion, her most beautiful work.  She used them to represent her travels.  Every spool had something like 300m of thread, so she collected enough to represent the distance she traveled, and she'd lay them all together over a map of the places she went.  The other girls just didn't think this was cool, but it simply took my breath away.

Lolpod:  There was a party going on in the city, and we wanted to see what was going on.  We crossed over this little canal, checked out the party, and headed back over the little bridge.  I noticed that there was a huge spider web over the canal.  Somehow, this spider had managed to build his web over a distance of nearly 3m! (It was probably about 8ft or so!)  I don't know how he did it.  The web was on one side of the canal, but there were two support threads that spanned the canal!  Beautiful!  Quite a few people noticed us staring down into the canal, and we showed them the web.  "Look," I said, "Flying spiders!"   

Sex Change

Spent most of the day cleaning my apartment and listening to NPR.  At three I headed to my shift in the Common Room.  It was a super rainy day, and it was so nice to sit at the desk, work on Egyptian, and just listen to the rain falling outside.  We always leave the door to the CR open, so there was a nice rainy breeze too.  Friday's sort of a slow day, but we had one or two people drift in to sign up for Dutch courses, or just to say hi.  Anna, of the ISN-I board stopped by, and she and I had a really great conversation.  Apparently there's some tension between ISN-I (Integration) and ISN-R (Representation.)  Old drama that I know (and want to know) nothing about.  She and I talked about how we can reduce the tensions and bring the two halves of ISN closer together.  Conflict management skills, activate!  Anna and I decided to start the trend of ISN solidarity by hanging out much of the evening.  

Eventually, however, we parted ways, for dinner.  I met up with Julia, her boyfriend Gary, two Korean girls, Yoon and Christina, and an Italian girl whose name I can't remember (she said hello and then vanished to get ready for a party.)  We sat in the common room of Herengracht, which is the other International student apartment building.  They brought beers and wine and munchies and various things and sort of set up shop.  But there was an ISN party tonight at 11, and so I met up with Helen, of Scotland, and went.

It was called a Sex Change Party, and all the girls were supposed to dress up like boys, and vice versa.  I was planning on borrowing some clothes from Matteo, my neighbor, but he wasn't home.  So I had to go as a girl.  But LOTS of people dressed up.  I think boys secretly love to dress up as women.  They always seem to go all out when they do cross dress.  Wigs and make-up and fake breasts, short skirts, purses, even dangly earrings (to match, of course.)  There were more than a few guys there who completely passed as girls too.  There was this one guy, Sven, who looked so much like a girl that I thought he was one until I said hello.  I just thought she was REALLY REALLY tall.  I was amazed at how tall this girl was, so I went over to say hi.  To Sven.  

We danced and danced and danced.  The music was strange.  In this aspect I don't know that I'll ever be very European.  Beep beep beep (bum bum bum) sort of music is just not my forté.  But who knows.  I used to HATE bubbly water, and now, I secretly love it!  :-)

Best Pick Up Line of the Evening: "I speak Azerbaijani." 

Lolpod:  I was on my way to the Herengracht feeling down.  Sad.  Alone.  I was in desperate need of a hug.  I was thinking about this when I noticed a cat sprinting down the sidewalk towards me, meowing.  He ran right up to me and bashed his little head against my leg.  I could hear him purring all the way from the ground.  I bent over to pet him, and he purred harder, and loved me.  He followed me to the end of the street, purring the entire way.  Thank you, Universe.

Wanting Memories

I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me,
to see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.
I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me,
to see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.

You used to rock me in the cradle of your arms,
You said you'd hold me till the pains of life were gone.
You said you'd comfort me in times like these and now I need you,
Now I need you, and you are gone.

I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me,
to see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.
Since you've gone and left me, there's been so little beauty,
But I know I saw it clearly through your eyes.

Now the world outside is such a cold and bitter place,
Here inside I have few things that will console.
And when I try to hear your voice above the storms of life,
Then I remember all the things that I was told.

I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me,
to see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.
I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me,
to see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.

I think on the things that made me feel so wonderful when i was young.
I think on the things that made me laugh, made me dance, made me sing.
I think on the things that made me grow into a being full of pride.
I think on these things, for they are true.

I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me,
to see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.
I thought that you were gone, but now I know you're with me,
You are the voice that whispers all I need to hear.

I know a please a thank you and a smile will take me far,
I know that I am you and you are me and we are one,
I know that who I am is numbered in each grain of sand,
I know that I've been blessed again, and over again.

I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me,
to see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.
I am sitting here wanting memories to teach me,
to see the beauty in the world through my own eyes.

The Prophet

And a woman spoke, saying, "Tell us of Pain."

And he said: Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.  Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.  And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;  And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.  And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.  Much of your pain is self-chosen.  It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.  Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity: For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen, And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.