Happy Feelings (today's pick-me-up)

“I have this strange feeling that I'm not myself anymore. It's hard to put into words, but I guess it's like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling.” 

“Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star. 
It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago.
Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. 
Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.” 
 

Do you know how beautiful you are?

I think not, my dear.

For as you talk of God,
I see great parades with wildly colorful bands
streaming from your mind and heart,
carrying wonderful and secret messages
to every corner of this world.

I see saints bowing in the mountains
hundreds of miles away
to the wonder of sounds
that break into light
from your most common words.

Speak to me of your mother,
your cousins and your friends.

Tell me of the squirrels and birds you know.
Awaken your legion of nightingales —
let them soar wild and free in the sky

and begin to sing of God.
Let’s all begin to sing to God!

Do you know how beautiful you are?

Hafiz

Keeping Watch by Hafiz

In the morning

when I began to wake,

it happened again–

that feeling

that you, Beloved,

had stood over me all night

keeping watch,

that feeling

that as soon as I began to stir

you put your lips on my forehead

and lit the Holy Lamp

inside my heart.

Your name is a—bird in my hand,
a piece of ice on my tongue.
The lips’ quick opening.
Your name—four letters.
A ball caught in flight,
a silver bell in my mouth.

A stone thrown into a silent lake
is—the sound of your name.
The light click of hooves at night
—your name.
Your name at my temple
—sharp click of a cocked gun.

Your name—impossible—
kiss on my eyes,
the chill of closed eyelids.
Your name—a kiss of snow.
Blue gulp of icy spring water.
With your name—sleep deepens.

April 15, 1916

from “Poems for Blok”
translated by Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Valentine

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity.” 

“We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then. To pretend that they and we are the same is a useful and convenient social convention which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember that at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.” 
― T.S. Eliot,

“I was suffering the easily foreseeable consequences. Addiction is the hallmark of every infatuation-based love story. It all begins when the object of your adoration bestows upon you a heady, hallucinogenic dose of something you never dared to admit you wanted-an emotional speedball, perhaps, of thunderous love and roiling excitement. Soon you start craving that intense attention, with a hungry obsession of any junkie. When the drug is withheld, you promptly turn sick, crazy, and depleted (not to mention resentful of the dealer who encouraged this addiction in the first place but now refuses to pony up the good stuff anymore-- despite the fact that you know he has it hidden somewhere, goddamn it, because he used to give it to you for free). Next stage finds you skinny and shaking in a corner, certain only that you would sell your soul or rob your neighbors just to have 'that thing' even one more time. Meanwhile, the object of your adoration has now become repulsed by you. He looks at you like you're someone he's never met before, much less someone he once loved with high passion. The irony is,you can hardly blame him. I mean, check yourself out. You're a pathetic mess, unrecognizable even to your own eyes. So that's it. You have now reached infatuation's final destination-- the complete and merciless devaluation of self." 

Watch and Listen:

Listen: The Chopin Project

Got To Give It Up!

The Last Poem in the World by HC

Would I write it if I could?

You bet your glitzy ass I would.

Hidden Things by C. P. Cavafy

From all I did and all I said
let no one try to find out who I was.
An obstacle was there that changed the pattern
of my actions and the manner of my life.
An obstacle was often there
to stop me when I’d begin to speak.
From my most unnoticed actions,
my most veiled writing—
from these alone will I be understood.
But maybe it isn’t worth so much concern,
so much effort to discover who I really am.
Later, in a more perfect society,
someone else made just like me
is certain to appear and act freely.