“For that which is boundless in you
abides in the mansion of the sky,
whose door is the morning mist,
and whose windows
are the songs and the silences of night”
Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness
ere you build a house within the city walls.
For even as you have home-comings in your twilight,
so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone.
Your house is your larger body.
It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night;
and it is not dreamless.
Does not your house dream?
and dreaming, leave the city for grove or hill-top?
Would that I could gather your houses into my hand,
and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow.
Would the valleys were your streets,
and the green paths your alleys,
that you might seek one another through vineyards,
and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments.
But these things are not yet to be.
In their fear your forefathers gathered you too near together.
And that fear shall endure a little longer.
A little longer shall your city walls
separate your hearths from your fields.
And tell me, people of Orphalese,
what have you in these houses?
And what is it you guard with fastened doors?
Have you peace,
the quiet urge that reveals your power?
Have you remembrances,
the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?
Have you beauty,
that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?
Tell me, have you these in your houses?
Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort,
that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest,
and then becomes a host and then a master?
Ay, and it becomes a tamer,
and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires.
Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron.
It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed
and jeer at the dignity of the flesh.
It makes mock of your sound senses,
and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels.
Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul,
and then walks grinning in the funeral.
But you, children of space, you restless in rest,
you shall not be trapped nor tamed.
Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast.
It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound,
but an eyelid that guards the eye.
You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors,
nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling,
nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down.
You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.
And though of magnificence and splendour,
your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.
For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky,
whose door is the morning mist,
and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night
Nature has given each species certain hormonal urges to ensure procreation. Mankind has these same urges…
Often nature ensures that animals are ‘hard-wired’ to see the differences in others of the same species as likely indications of a suitable mating partner. This is a method that ensures the mating units are not too closely related… this widening of the gene pool leads to what we call ‘Hybrid vigor’. It is this ‘Opposites Attract’ feature that gives us widely dissimilar people who find some common interest in one another.
Ladies Love Country Boys
Trace Adkins
She grew up in the city in a little subdivision,
Her daddy wore a tie, Momma never fried a chicken,
Ballet, Straight A’s, Most likely to succeed
They bought her a car after graduation
Sent her down south for some higher education
Put her on the fast track to a law degree
Now she’s comin home to visit
holdin the hand
Of a wild-eyed boy
with a farmer’s tan
And shes ridin in the middle of his pickup truck
Blarin Charlie Daniels yellin, “Turn it up!”
They raised her up a lady
but there’s one thing they couldn’t avoid
Ladies love country boys
This song is something like Vickie and me… she grew up in Orange County… she really never knew anyone with a garden until she journeyed to the country to visit her brother who was working on a local landscape crew due to his knowledge of Spanish. She saw a whole new life in the bush after she met me….
But it sure was a different life than the city… we lived for a time in a tow-behind 27 foot travel-trailer. We grew much of our own food, and had no Television. As the song said… it was as primitive as could be. And it was fun, and new for us both.
While the initial onrush of ‘Romantic Love’ is heady and easy to flow along with…. it is the long-term committed relationship that requires constant work, and forgiveness and love… and may require a bit of that in varying degrees each and every day…. To forgive and to accept and to deal with shortcomings and problems is the only way to continue.
Just as Reba says….
~Reba MyIntyre~
‘I Keep On Loving You’
“Love takes the patience of Job”
That’s what my Mama always said
‘Faith is the belief in something more than what you know’
That’s what the Good Book says
You gotta play the cards you got
Who knows what fate is holding
At times you gotta go without knowing where you’re goin’
That’s why I keep on lovin’ you
I keep on lovin’ you
Through the ‘baby don’t leave mes’
And ‘never will agains’
And ‘I promise tos’
I keep on lovin’ you
Lord knows we’ve had our share of fights
Our sleepless nights, our ups and downs
We’ve had plenty and then some of ‘baby I’m gones’ and turnarounds
Sometimes I swear it might be easier to throw in the towel
Someday we’re gonna look back
And say “look at us now”
That’s why I keep on lovin’ you
I keep on lovin’ you
Through the baby don’t leave mes
And never will agains
And I promise tos
I keep on lovin’ you
I’ve heard it said that “Men marry women hoping they’ll never change… Women marry men hoping they can change them”.
Best is to pick someone you can put up with, and remain committed to… and hopefully you will have picked a person that can put up with you… and will remain committed to you also.
I suppose it’s something of a crapshoot… and I never was a gambling man….
An uncle of mine told me to “stay single, and raise your kids to do the same”… somehow in the sixties that was a really funny line.. cause no one had kids without being married (it seemed). But he had five or six wives in his time….. he was speaking from experience.
Kahlil Gibran ‘On Marriage’
Then Almitra spoke again and said…
“And what of Marriage, master?”
And he answered saying:
You were born together,
and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings
of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the
silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea between
the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone
though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together.
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress
grow not in each other’s shadow.
Give yourselves some room…. for most folks being together 24-7 is too tough. Get out and blaze some paths, encounter some new people… have some adventures…. but always be good.. so that you can come home and be happy to be there.. and have no regrets. Life with regrets is burdensome and heavy.
But get away from one-another on occasion… just remember:
‘There ain’t no place like home’
Train
‘Drops of Jupiter’
Now that she’s back from that soul vacation
Tracing her way through the constellation
She checks out Mozart while she does Tae-Bo
Reminds me that there’s room to grow
But tell me
Did the wind sweep you off your feet?
Did you finally get the chance to
Dance along the light of day
And head back to the Milky Way
Tell me
Did Venus blow your mind
Was it everything you wanted to find?
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?
Can you imagine no
Love, pride, deep-fried chicken
Your best friend always sticking up for you
Even when I know you’re wrong
Can you imagine no
First dance, freeze-dried romance
Five hour phone conversation
The best soy latte that you ever had and me
Tell me
Did you sail across the sun
Did you make it to the Milky Way
To see the lights are faded
And that heaven is overrated
Tell me
Did you fall for a shooting star
One without a permanent scar
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself
And did you finally get the chance
to dance along the light of day?
Yep
Vickie and I are quite different, and yet strangely so alike in so many ways…
and after half a lifetime together we still get along and love one another….
although sometimes we grate on one another….
at those times we agree not to speak of the ‘issues or problems’….
luckily we have a lot of space….
and in a short time… there is no trouble.
Because in time most troubles fade away….
and in the end nothing else really matters but love.
And after we leave, that’s all we can take with us.
‘The Touch of the Master’s Hand’
~Myra Brooks Welch~
It was battered and scarred,
And the auctioneer thought it
hardly worth his while
To waste his time on the old violin,
but he held it up with a smile.
“What am I bid, good people”, he cried,
“Who starts the bidding for me?”
“One dollar, one dollar, Do I hear two?”
“Two dollars, who makes it three?”
“Three dollars once, three dollars twice, going for three,”
But, No,
From the room far back a gray-bearded man
Came forward and picked up the bow,
Then wiping the dust from the old violin
And tightening up the strings,
He played a melody, pure and sweet
As sweet as the angel sings.
The music ceased and the auctioneer
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said “What now am I bid for this old violin?”
As he held it aloft with its’ bow.
“One thousand, one thousand, Do I hear two?”
“Two thousand, Who makes it three?”
“Three thousand once, three thousand twice,
Going and gone”, said he.
The audience cheered,
But some of them cried,
“We just don’t understand.”
“What changed its worth?”
Swift came the reply.
“The Touch of the Masters Hand.”
And many a man with life out of tune
All battered with bourbon and gin
Is auctioned cheap to a thoughtless crowd
Much like that old violin
A mess of pottage, a glass of wine,
A game and he travels on.
He is going once, he is going twice,
He is going and almost gone.
But the Master comes,
And the foolish crowd never can quite understand,
The worth of a soul and the change that is wrought
By the Touch of the Masters’ Hand.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
What a beautiful little piece the above is.
I’ve been in some extreme situations… met some horrendous people in my life….
Yet, even I still have faith that nearly everyone can be saved….
Sad besotted lives… nightmares in daily living…
Even they, with the help of the right person can be freed of their demons and live a happy existence….
It just takes the right help from the right person.
When you are the right person… won’t you please help?Because NOTHING in this life is purely by chance….
everything we experience is a learning point…
every day we are given opportunities to increase our internal wealth
and you never know when the fellow you pull out of the ditch
is the one who will fill you with internal gold
“Help thy brother’s boat across, and lo!, thine own has reached the shore.”
~Hindu proverb~
We’ve been oranically certified since 1993….
This is one song that runs right into and through me…
All I want to do is grow cactus, and live in this beautiful, quiet, remote canyon.
Jason Aldean
‘Amarillo Sky’
He says
“Lord, I never complain, I never ask why…
please don’t let my dreams run dry” On his knees every night he prays
“please let my crops and children grow…”
’cause that’s all he knows
I’ve been toying with cutting my hair on and off for a half year. Last week a cousin in Germany sent me a photo of our great grandfather on my mother’s side. I’d never met him as he died a couple of years before I was born. Looking at the photo…. I decided I finally was ready to cut my hair…. for better or for worse.
‘Almost Cut My Hair’
~Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young~
Almost cut my hair
It happened just the other day
It’s gettin’ kind of long
I could’ve said it was in my way
But I didn’t and I wonder why
I feel like letting my freak flag fly
And I feel like I owe it, to someone
Must be because I had the flu for Christmas
And I’m not feeling up to par
It increases my paranoia
Like looking in my mirror and seeing a police car
But I’m not giving in an inch to fear
çause I’ve promised myself this year
I feel like I owe it, to someone
When I finally get myself together
I’m gonna get down in that sunny southern weather
And find a place inside to laugh,
Separate the wheat from the chaff
I feel …
Like I owe it, to someone, yeah
There you may stand in your splendor and jewels
Swaying me in both directions
One is the right one, the other for fools
How do I make my selection?
The city lies silent in the warm morning light
The sand is as golden as saffron
Oasis of love, sweet water of life
God bless the poor ones who have none though they have tried
Someone is drowning down there in the flood
But this river will dry by tomorrow
Is it ocean or stream, this love in my blood?
Bringer of joy or of sorrow?
The end of the journey must soon be in sight
Birth is the start of the swansong
Oasis of love, sweet water of life
God bless the poor ones who want some, but are denied
No one is given the map to their dreams
All we can do is to trace it
See where we go to, know where we’ve been
Build up the courage to face it.
While we fumble in the darkness where once there was light
Roaming the land of the ancients
Oasis of love, sweet water of life
God bless the poor ones whose patience never died
While we stumble in blindness where once there was sight
Searching for trees in the forest
Oasis of love, sweet water of life
God bless the poor ones who have none though they have tried
God bless the poor ones who want some, but are denied
God bless the poor ones whose patience never died
God bless the poor ones on that one-way donkey ride
Family is the only thing that goes with you beyond…
everything in this world can be taken in an instant….
but when you yourself leave…
you know you will see loved ones,
and will see the ones you leave behind again…
that’s the stuff that really matters.
Love is the thread that ties these worlds together…
love pulls you along from this to the next…
the net of God is loosely woven…
it covers all creation…
it passes easily everywhere without snagging….
like the tide it rushes in and out and nothing can escape its weave….
and He pulls in all He chooses… when He wishes….
![[Google]]( http://www.nopalcactusblog.com/wp-content/plugins/easy-adsenser/google-light.gif)
