Magic

Some of us, who find magic in things, in stones and words, in grass and leaves, long ago realized that it is unimportant where the leaves got their power, only that they have it.

Catherynne M. Valente – The Orphan’s Tales: In the Night Garden

Perpetual State of Transformation

In Nature, nothing Remains Constant. Everything is in a Perpetual State of Transformation, Motion and Change    –   David Bohm

The God teaches man to disregard human laws

Shivaism has always opposed the anthropocentrity of urban society. Its western form, Dionysism, similarly represents the stage where man in is communion with savage life, with the beasts of the mountain and forest. Dionysus, like Shiva, is a god of vegetation, of trees and of the vine. He’s also an animal god, a bull god. The god teaches man to disregard human laws in order to rediscover divine laws. His cult which unleashes the powers of soul and body, has encountered a lively resistance from city religions, which have always considered it antisocial. Shiva, like Dionysus, is represented by city religions as the protector of those who do not belong to conventional society and thus symbolizes everything which is chaotic, dangerous and unexpected, everything which escapes human reason and which can only be attributed to the unforeseeable action of the gods.

Alain  Daniélou – Gods of Love and Ecstasy: The traditions of Shiva and Dionysus

With the consciousness that they are being hunted by women who would take sexual delight in dismembering them…

To clarify the dilemma women have about sexual enthusiasm for men, it is helpful to contrast it with men’s situation. It is unlikely in the extreme that men will have experienced actual sexual violence from women or its threat. Men do not live in cultures where the degradation and brutalisation of men at the hands of women is the stuff of pornography, entertainment and advertising. Men do not live with the consciousness that they are being hunted by women who would take sexual delight in dismembering them simply on account of their gender. They do not live in a society in which their degradation through sex is the dominant theme of the culture. They do not have to approach women sexually in fear or with distressing images or associations with their own oppression. The images they are likely to carry with them are those of women degraded and brutalised by men. In fact they are likely to have practised sexual arousal with such images, extensively, through pornography and fantasy. It is not surprising, then, that sexologists have identified women’s ‘inhibition’ as the main sexual problem of this century. They have identified as healthy sexual feelings those which the male ruling class experiences and have chosen to avoid recognising the political reasons why women might feel differently.

Sheila Jeffreys – Anticlimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution

Kittens one day…

That’s the trouble with living things. Don’t last very long. Kittens one day, old cats the next. And then just memories. And the memories fade and blend and smudge together.

Neil Gaiman – The Ocean at the End of the Lane

thinkers…

Readers are plentiful; thinkers are rare    —    Henry David Thoreau

feeling uneasy and afraid

Anything good that I have written has, at some point during its composition, left me feeling uneasy and afraid. It has seemed, for a moment at least, to put me at risk.

Michael Chabon – Maps and Legends

There was a raw cruelty to their world

I miss the cosmic energy of ancient Greece. They loved their gods to whom everything was given save the supreme power. Free, none of them were in the absolute sense, only Zeus was, though his arbitrariness was often looked at with a critical eye. Prometheus was chained because he rebelled, and lo was condemned to suffer an opposite but equally radical punishment, to turn and turn and never rest. There was a raw cruelty to their world, but I miss them, just the same.

Etel Adnan – Shifting the Silence

seize the moment…

We live in times of fear and uncertainty, boys and girls. So think about those closest to you right now, seize the moment and don’t waste time on fear. Let the future look after itself and make love your priority…

Witches plunge blindly into the abyss

Witches, like saints, are solitary stars that shine with a light of their own; they depend on nothing and no one, which is why they have no fear and plunge blindly into the abyss with the assurance that instead of crashing to earth, they will fly back out. They can change into birds and see the world from above, or worms to see it from within, they can inhabit other dimensions and travel to other galaxies, they are navigators on an infinite ocean of consciousness and cognition.

Isabel Allende – Paula