New Location

I like wordpress better. It gives me more of a "hometown feel" (whatever that means). I guess the company just seems more personal... Anyway, if you're interested:

http://whywondermous.wordpress.com

Similar Lines

"If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no indifferent place."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Well-fed Soul

"'If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.'

Attributed to the Gulistan of Moslih Eddin Saadi, a [Muslim] sheik and Persian poet who lived about 1184-1291." (Hazel Felleman, The Best Loved Poems of the American People)

I went a little crazy one week and painted something on almost every wall of my room: a tree behind my bed, a rendition of Starry Night around my "fireplace," and this poem between one bookcase and behind my door. Ele could tell you several choice things about it's... lack of certain appeal, and I'll admit I wasn't so sure I liked what it had to say: if you're not rich in material wealth, at least there's still some pleasure to be had in beautiful things. Is it recommending that we be content with wild flowers and the freedom to be found in "nature" (a loaded word and concept)? Yes... but, no, not really. There are people in this world (a very large number in fact - i.e. almost all of the Southern Hemisphere) whose daily lives are lived in such a way I'm not sure many people realize. Forget the fact that they don't have running water or that they have limited or no access to electricity. For those living in abject poverty, infant mortality rates can be legitimately read as institutionalized violence. They have almost no conceivable hope of being able to make ends meet, living on less that US$1 each and every day, and it's not for lack of working hard, toiling, and struggling (where do you think we get all that coffee, those bananas, cocoa, clothes, etc.?). Millions still live in slavery, which, contrary to popular belief, is NOT over. So, how can it be legitimately advised that people struggling to survive on less than they need simply take comfort in whatever beauty they can find? Is that what this poem is saying? After some reflection, I've decided that I don't think that's it. Instead, without detracting from the importance of the basic human right to survival and sustenance, it's important not to put all your emphasis on material well-being. If you're lacking all that you want, but still have what you need, take comfort in the art, pleasure the beauty that is. Still, even this doesn't come free. There are sacrifices that must be made: to stop, to savor, to struggle. It is through such efforts that our very souls are fed. Furthermore, this is available to everyone who works for it. Look at Gandhi, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, Jr., Liberation Theology, and the list goes on. Individuals, groups, and movements whose works were and are motivated by something greater than their immediate, material needs. Their actions speak to an imbalance in greater, less tangible, things. These are the flowers we must work to cultivate. They require nurturance through compromise and sacrifice, but these are what feed our souls and make our daily bread worth while.

Grossly Fascinating

The above image is a picture of Turbatrix aceti, or vinegar eels as they're more commonly known. These little worms feed off mother of vinegar, a combination of celulose and bacteria which develops in fermenting alchol (e.g. what happens if you leave that bottle of wine out too long...). I found out about them a couple of weeks ago when I was going to make mango glazed salmon for some friends. "What's that got to do with vinegar worms," you ask? Well the recipe (delicious, btw), called for rice vinegar. Like I have rice vinegar! (Ok, it's not that unusual of an ingredient, especially if you're one of the people who looked the recipe up. After all, I did have star of anise...) So I did some research to see if I could substitute some balsamic vinegar instead (I could!) and somehow came across some sites about culturing vinegar eels. "What the heck are vinegar eels?" methinks. Turns out they're these non-parasitic worms that just love the bacteria in vinegar. They're not likely to be in anything we eat as the vinegar sold in stores is pasteurized, but people do culture them. "Why would they do something so gross?!" Simple: fry (a.k.a. baby fish), apparently, love them. The thing is, I really don't think that they are sooo very repulsive. Weird yes; they give me a bit of the heebie-jeebies I'll admit, but, even more than that, I'm simply in awe of how much life there is. Everywhere, anywhere: your guts, your eyelashes, within the walls of your house, the soil, the sea, everywhere there's all this stuff just teeming. We're surrounded in this beautiful, intricate, and yes, sometimes deadly, web of cohabitation. But the thing that I just love is how I don't mind a teaspoon or two of vinegar added to my fish, but I wouldn't want to swig the stuff, yet here are these little creatures who just thrive off of it, and they just happen to be the favorite snack of the fish I dined on. I don't think I'll ever look at the fridge the same way again.

Through Doorways

The above photo takes my breath away. Words don't need to be written or said; just thoughts, visions, flashing through my mind, twisting on, downward through those sandy halls. Chris Gray took this Dali-like photo in the diamond "ghost" town of Kolmanskop, Namibia. Forgotten and abandoned, it's like those memories which get lost in the recesses of the mind, the forgotten projects and passions which you never thought you'd give up on. Stories and secrets which just get buried in your soul, become a part of your subconscious and help make up who you are without you even fully realizing. A romantic reflection on a picture which, for all its haunting, eery beauty, also captures the impressions of past colonialism, and intriguingly begs the question: where do the descendants of the families who used to live here live now? Are their lives any more secure? Is anyone's? What heaping changes there are which have take place in the lives of an individual, of a country.

True Essence

Freedom XIV

And an orator said, "Speak to us of Freedom."
And he answered:
At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,
Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.
Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.
And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.
You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,
But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.
And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?
In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes.
And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?
If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.
You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.
And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.
For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their won pride?
And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.
And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.
Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.
These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.
And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.
And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.

Khalil Gibran

Simple Pleasures

By now enough Dove chocolates with the instructions, "Buy yourself flowers," have come my way that I've been brainwashed into even more self-indulgance (I like to think I wouldn't do it on my own... at least I know I lie). This week I splurged and went with some cheerful yellow tulips. The extravagance continued with some perhaps unneccessarily large quantities of fresh fruit. I didn't always like them, but now I love having fresh lemons and limes on hand. Lemons always remind me of when I went with friends to Italy... something about the easy warmth and saltiness of the Mediterranean air made them the perfect refreshment. I purposely picked up this little silver basket from the local Good Will to showcase them (it probably used to hold loofahs). I love the play of the yellows and greens with the blue and silver. Add some great Nag Champa incense to the mix and it's pretty homey. I also love Ele's beautiful idea of a wishing wall... everyone should have one.

Why "Wondermous?"

So I like silly, random things. Yesterday I walked out of an elevator and into a beam of broken sunlight. A bell chimed in the background. For one split second I actually thought I could hear the Sound of Sun. Once I figured out what was really going on (I was in a hallway, the cut of the wall staggered the way the light fell, and, heaven's to Betsy, the elevator would ding!), I was so happy to have had such an innocent and blissful thought: how would the music of light sound? That is wondermous: wonderful, spontaneous. Why ask why? Just because you want to know. Sieze the fabulous in life and wonder.