Oldwoman

Haïku

2010-10-14T02:12:00.001-07:00

I love haïkus, love putting pictures on them, would love writing some...

Mary Oliver

2010-09-26T08:41:00.001-07:00

Starlings in Winter by Mary Oliver

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly
they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,
dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,
then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can’t imagine
how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,
this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;
I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want
to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.
..................................................
when you feel sad and tired, poetry is always here to comfort you...
during the last two years books saved me...

Siberian women

2008-12-05T03:29:00.001-08:00

Sibérie, un voyage au pays des femmes Chroniques
by Anne Brunswic

In the winter of 2004 and the spring of 2005, Anne Brunswic traveled twice to Siberia, crisscrossing this region/ continent extensively, a region whose history has primarily been a tragic one, marked by political upheaval and severe economic depression. From the White Sea to the Pacific Ocean, from Yakutia to Birobidjan, from the mines of Kolema to the port of Vladivostok, she wandered through this wide, sometimes deserted countryside, magnificent, stark, meeting the few native Siberians and European immigrants still surviving in the extreme climatic conditions. This is also where Orthodox Christians, animists, the descendants of the butchers of the gulags and the families of their victims have ended up, scratching out a bare living.Anne Brunswic decided to seek out the women of Siberia, be they poets, singers, journalists, cooks, professors or museum curators. Natalya, Tamara, Ludmila, Irina ... they share with her their professional and personal stories, their political and religious beliefs, the tragedies which have touched their families, their bereavement, how they manage in their day-to-day lives, speaking quietly about the dreams they had when they were young. We follow the author, a keen observer of daily life, on her voyage, learning with her how these Russians living at the end of the world – make sense of their brutal historical experiences, about the hopes they still have for the future. She becomes a messenger, a voice reaching out to these women separated by thousands of kilometers. In spite of the difficulty and the uncertainty of their lives, most of the women speak of their attachment to Siberia, to the land, to its standards of brotherhood and adventure. Each of them is convinced that their bruised and broken country will someday move forward into a new day.

Agafia, a wonderful woman

2008-12-05T03:25:00.001-08:00

By
John P. Jones III (Albuquerque, NM, USA) - See all my reviews This is truly a fascinating story of six "old believers" who found sanctuary for their strange beliefs deep in the Siberian forest. They cut their ties with "civilization" in 1938, lived quite primitively in a remote area of Siberia just north of the juncture of Mongolia and China. They had absolutely no contact with others until they were discovered by miners, using helicopters to survey this inaccessible region in 1982. One of the miners conveyed his findings to the Russian journalist, Vassili Peskov, who has written this book, which is in part a detective story uncovering the lives of the lives of these six, who composed the family Lykov. There are numerous "fundamentalists" among the monotheistic religions, be they Christian, Jewish or Muslim. Not often discussed are the fundamentalists of the Russian Orthodox Church. Peskov explains that there was a major schism in the church in the 16th century, in part due to a "reinterpretation" of the Greek sources by Czar Peter the Great. Beliefs changed, and suddenly it was important if one made the sign of the cross with three fingers or two. Peter also decreed that beards be shaved. The fundamentalist opposed these innovations, as well as the use of tobacco and alcohol, games, and songs. They also opposed much of the authority of the state, including its laws, military service, money and passports. As with other fundamentalists, be they those who are concerned about events on the plains of Karbala, or the ownership of land on the West Bank, the "old believers" are motivated as though Peter the Great was still alive. They followed the dictum of their 16th Century leadership, fleeing and hiding. None seems to have done it better than the family Lykov. As Peskov investigation of the family unfolds, he describes their bare subsistence living since prior to World War II. The family lived in hovels, had no salt, watched as their few iron tools rusted and broke, cultivated potatoes (ironically, one of the forbidden items in the 16th Century), eschewed the use of matches to start fires (the sulfur was also forbidden), relied upon the forest (taiga) to supplement their meager fare, and maintained the various "fetishes" of their fundamentalist beliefs. Naturally they had no health care. A spectra haunted this group, as well as other remote old believers - incest! Peskov never can definitely state this is the reason why the two brothers established separate dwellings six kilometers from the main housing unit, but certainly it is high on the speculation list. Peskov uses the English term "Robinsons" to describe them. In 1961 they were almost overwhelmed by famine, due to snows in June which killed their meager crops. The mother Lykov died shortly thereafter, no doubt weakened by inadequate food. Over the course of Peskov's contact with them, in the `80's, all died except the daughter Agafia. Would she elect to return to "civilization", or maintain her ways as a hermit of the forest? This is an excellent book, with insights into a radically different way of life, and is highly recommended in order to find the answer to that question, as well as numerous others. It also provides a "distant mirror" view of other fundamentalist groups.

Haïkus, seasons, buttons...

2008-08-19T10:03:00.000-07:00

collages on four buttons, for four seasons...then four haïkus ...

illustrating haïkus...wouldn't dare translating them...a small book for my Mum...

2008-08-19T10:02:00.000-07:00

APRIL'S AIR STIRS IN WILLOW-LEAVES ...

A BUTTERFLY

FLOATS AND BALANCES

BASHO

Big Sur and the oranges of Hieronymous Bosch (published in 1957)

2008-01-19T10:13:00.000-08:00

Henry Miller in Big Sur (video)
Big Sur here...
the new library in Big Sur
important links about Miller here

.....................................

strong, hilarious, extremely interesting, deep, complete...what could I say...fascinating book...

to tell the truth I haven't been yet able to read a book by Henry Miller...but I found the reference of this one in Mariusz Wilks, and you know how I deeply love Mariuz W. I rely on him...so I started reading Henry Miller's book...nearly finished...it's not like a novel you read during one night...you need to take your time, to nibble some small pieces, to digest them, to think about them...you have everything in this book, thoughts about life, god, litterature, painting, children, nature, creating, food, ...

the book tells the story of miller's life on the Big Sur, a section of the California coast where he lived from 1944 to 1962. That was a very colourful place. Extraordinary people used to live there...kind of hippy community before the days...but a high concentration of writers, painters, all sorts of talents living next to each other, near nature...some people never wrote a line, never painted anything but they lived...carpe diem...

this is the testament of Miller, a free spirit who tried to find whithin himself his own kind of paradise...

read this book, it makes you feel better...

2007-12-18T03:55:00.000-08:00

When I feel tired, a bit depressed (or a lot !) I love reading detective novels...I last discovered Ian Pears...

He was born in Coventry in 1955. Educated at Wadham College, Oxford, he has worked as a journalist, an art historian and a television consultant. He is the author of seven highly praised detective novels, a book of art history and countless articles on artistic, financial and historical subjects...

I read six of his books:
-The dream of Scipio
-The Raphaël affair
-Giotto's hand
-The Titian committee
-The Bernini bust
-The last judgement
I chose the stories with Flavia di Stephano and Jonathan Argyll...the first works with General Bottando in the art department of the Roman police...when a picture is stolen, when a museum has a problem, they inquire...Jonathan is at first an English student, rather whimsical...
It's light, well written, bad ones aren't always punished...some are really bad ones, their death isn't a real problem, some aren't so bad so...You discover Italy, Rome and famous painters in the background...
It's quite nice for long winter evenings...

2007-11-18T12:59:00.000-08:00

I just closed down The monkey wrench gang by Edward Abbey...oh dear, what a book...

what a man...I already knew Desert solitaire...loved it...but with this new book, I spent such good hours laughing and laughing...these characters are so so great...

HILARIOUS...GREAT...DEEP...INTERESTING...POLITICALLY INCORRECT ( that's why I love him...)

I can only say...READ IT OR REREAD IT...AT ONCE...

Crossroads by Joyce Sutphen

2007-11-04T09:30:00.000-08:00

I was looking for a poem about birth and found this, and liked it...so here it is, just for you...and when you finish reading it go and visit my friend Mereabeille, she will talk to you about the last film she saw...

Crossroads by Joyce Sutphen

The second half of my life will be black
to the white rind of the old and fading moon.

The second half of my life will be water
over the cracked floor of these desert years.
I will land on my feet this time,
knowing at least two languages and who
my friends are. I will dress for the
occasion, and my hair shall be
whatever color I please.
Everyone will go on celebrating the old
birthday, counting the years as usual,
but I will count myself new from this
inception, this imprint of my own desire.

The second half of my life will be swift,
past leaning fenceposts, a gravel shoulder,
asphalt tickets, the beckon of open road.

The second half of my life will be wide-eyed,
fingers shifting through fine sands,
arms loose at my sides, wandering feet.
There will be new dreams every night,
and the drapes will never be closed.
I will toss my string of keys into a deep
well and old letters into the grate.

The second half of my life will be ice
breaking up on the river, rain
soaking the fields, a hand
held out, a fire,
and smoke going
upward, always up.

Jane Austen ( 16 December 1775-18 July 1817)

2007-10-25T08:52:00.000-07:00

just a few quotes...and read Mereabeille 's post about the film "Becoming Jane"...

"Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!"
"With men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please, every feature works."
"You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least."

Doris Lessing...

2007-10-17T08:34:00.000-07:00

I spent the last few days rereading my favorites...and I must say I really love "The diary of a good neighbour"...this book has a strange story...wanting to show how difficult it's for a young writer to publish, Doris Lessing wrote it under a pseudonym : Jane Somers...

''I wanted to highlight that whole dreadful process in book publishing that 'nothing succeeds like success,' '' she said in a recent telephone conversation from London. ''If the books had come out in my name, they would have sold a lot of copies and reviewers would have said, 'Oh, Doris Lessing, how wonderful.' As it is, there were almost no reviews, and the books sold about 1,500 copies here and scarcely 3,000 copies each in the United States.''
By contrast, Mrs. Lessing's ''Golden Notebook,'' published in 1962. has sold more than 900,000 copies in hardback and won the Prix Medicis Foreign Award, one of the top literary prizes in France. Her series of five novels, ''The Children of Violence,'' has sold almost one million books.
Mrs. Lessing explains the experiment in the preface to a paperback edition of the two novels to be published in one volume next month, under her own name. The book, published by Vintage, an imprint of Random House, will be titled ''The Diaries of Jane Somers,'' a reference to her pseudonym.
She writes in the preface that the first book was rejected by her longtime British publisher, Jonathan Cape.
''Jonathan Cape said it was a pretty good book, but it wasn't commercially viable,'' said Jonathan Clowes, the author's literary agent. Granada, another well-known British publisher rejected the book as too depressing to publish.

There two extraordinary women in that story : Janna and Maudie...everything separate them, money, elegance, life, character (though...)...and yet it's an etraordinary love story, birth, rebirth story...
One day, Janna meets a tiny bent old woman called Maudie Fowler in a chemist's shop . On the surface, the difference between them is enormous. Janna: elegant, pushy, middle-aged career woman. Maudie: slow, old, troublesome and needy. Yet they touch off in each other deep sympathies that evolve into a powerful and indestructible symbiosis.
Her relationship with Maudie exposes Janna to many aspects of herself that have previously remained buried and leads her to look with fresh eyes at our societys callous disregard for the loneliness, deprivation and suffering of the old. Finally, Janna comes to understand that, however great the hurdles of everyday life, the most difficult task of all is to die.
We follow step by step, Janna's changes, we live and answer her questions, about life, death, love, responsibility, work, politics, feminism...

Incredible Doris...a few quotes...

2007-10-17T07:52:00.001-07:00

Nobel Prize for Doris Lessing...
After she found out she had won the prize, she told reporters outside her home "I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one, so I'm delighted to win them all. It's a royal flush."

In 1982 she wrote on the New York Times:
"What the feminists want of me is something they haven't examined because it comes from religion. They want me to bear witness. What they would really like me to say is, 'Ha, sisters, I stand with you side by side in your struggle toward the golden dawn where all those beastly men are no more.' Do they really want people to make oversimplified statements about men and women? In fact, they do. I've come with great regret to this conclusion."

This sentence i love: "I have found it to be true that the older I 've become, the better my life has become"...

and this text:

"With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. it is the most democratic of institutions because no one_ but no one at all_ can tell you what to read and when and how"...

I need lightness...

2007-09-26T12:12:00.000-07:00

I need some lighter reading, funnier, more entertaining...and I found what I was looking for...(between two chapters of Dalva ( for the fourth time), I'm a Jim Harrison addict!)
I love detective stories...and particularly one woman: Donna Leon ...She's American but lives in Venice...and she knows that magic Italian town ever so well...and the Superintendant Brunetti is so good looking...how do I know ? sure he is...and he has such a nice voice...romantic...only one problem his wife is also, beautiful and intelligent, specialised in English litterature, he reads classical Roman and Greek authors . Follow him and you'll get to know venice, that town where people walk, talk to each other, watch each other, eat and drink special food and wines...
BUT, but the book is entitled:
"On Venice, music, people and books"
The French title could be translated that way: "Whithout Brunetti..."
I am very keen on essays, like the style of essays, not a novel, not a journal, but you've got the impression you are sitting near the writer, chatting with her...and you also learn so many things, discover such great people...Alberto Peratoner, doctor in philosophy, specialist of Pascal whose job is : being in charge of the clock in Saint Marco tower...
Not forgetting heavy, medium or light food, opera, old building, American Embassy, Saoudi Arabia, doctors, a little bit of sex, and the tiny moles in the garden...
It's a pleasure, you open it at any page, read a short chapter, have it in your bag to wait for the bus... Sure you'll like it...

as much as I love Venice...

Welcome to Autumn...

2007-09-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

After the rain,
the empty mountain
at dusk
is full of autumn air.
A bright moon
shines between the pines;
The clear spring water
glides over the rocks.
Bamboo leaves rustling —
the washer-girls bound home.
Water lilies swaying —
a fisher-boat goes down.
Never mind that
spring plants are no longer green.
I am here to stay
my noble friends!
by Wang Wei
Chinese poet (699?-761)
poem translated by Edward C. Cheng

House on the Oniego

2007-09-11T03:11:00.000-07:00

I don't know for sure whether the last book from Wilk was translated in English...but if it wasread it...If yes, read it...I would really like to know how readers outside Europe feel about it.

No Tammy dear, I read it in French, but many words are still in Russian or Polish with a little explanation and I like the special music it gives the language...

Why did I chose it ?

It was in the public library among new books...It was not fiction, I'm not very keen on fiction...

I knew nothing about the writer, very little about Polish litterature...

It was talking about the north, the north of Russia, a very remote part of Europe , a land that fascinates me...

There's the beauty and mystery of a language so complicated, so sophisticated to me...I spent three weeks in Poland some years ago and was unable to speak a word...I visited some countries and always managed to communicate a bit with people, learn a few sentences, a song...but in Poland it was impossible...my friends couldn't either...but when we arrived the first night , when we went to the huge dining-room where so many people where having dinner, when we saw on the table the big dish full of potatoes, a little fat bacon and the jugs of buttermilk we were struck deep inside, we were back to Brittany, real Breton meal, the meal our ancestors shared over the years, the meal I share with hubby, the meal many young ones never tasted...the meal of poor people, the buttermilk we shared with people in Algeria and Marocco served with sweet couscous and honey...and the potatoes of the country people...

I didn't know some American women would one day send me the recipe of chicken and buttermilk...but that's another story...a nice one...

So I wanted to share more with somebody writing in Polish, and I was right...It's deep, poetic, sarcastic...I hear some beautiful voices I love, Thomas Merton for instance...japenese, russian, all sorts of great writers...

It's a kind of journal, because it gives a writer much freedom but much distance...you're always responsible of what you write...in a novel you may invent whatever you like...your characters may use your voice or the contrary...in a journal YOU speak your own truth...

and that man takes his time...no need to hurry in that village so far away, with no tv, no radio, no central heating...

I was very crossed to read a critic saying: "a very fashionable story...he's living a hippy life...trying to be so and so..."

No, Mariusz went over there to listen to the voice of the lake, of the land, of the people, to listen to his own voice as well...it's something you live deep inside...you're here to listen to the questions, to live the questions...( Thank you Mr Rilke !!!)

The way the Russian country is painted, the politics or the lack of politics in such a romote land, is so interesting...Where is the truth ? is there a truth ? or plenty little truths according to the people you meet...

and extraordinary characters cross the book, the pope educated in France, the old women from the choir, the drunk ones, the stove, this so peculiar Russian stove, huge made of wood and clay, like in China...it makes a kind of platform where people sleep in winter...and the ice, the wind, the snow, the wolves...the religion as a quest for friendship ? to keep things alive ? to avoid dying all alone in these villages deserted by most people, forgotten by governements, but not by those seeking for uranium , wood or...

the paintings of icons, the colours, the singers and the poets...misery, death, alcohol, boredom and beauty, freedom and the Oniego that lake giving food and life...

I don't know why I chose "la maison au bord de l'Oniego" in a few seconds, but I am so happy I did...

Mariusz Wilk

2007-09-11T02:59:00.000-07:00

Mariusz Wilk, born in 1955, is a journalist and the cofounder of several independent publications in the Wroclaw area. He took part in the strike in the Gdansk Shipyard in 1980, editing the Biuletyn Informacyjny "Solidarnosc," which he headed until December 13, 1981. He was also press spokesman for the Gdansk Solidarity Regional Board. From the imposition of martial law, he was sought by the Security Service. He remained hidden until his arrest on December 11, 1982. He was released just before the amnesty of July 1983. Later, he became involved in the Movement of New Entrepreneurship in Gdansk.Mariusz Wilk is a writer and traveller who resided in Northern Russia for over a decade. Detained during Poland’s martial law, he is the co-author of the book Konspira : "rzecz o podziemnej „Solidarności” – Conspiracy" : the story of the trade -union"Solidarity” (1984). In 1989, he abandoned civilization, travelled to the Sołowieckie Islands and then to Lake Oniega. His books Wilczy notes – “Wilk’s Notebook” (1998) and Wołoka (2005) were previously published in the columns of "Kultura”, "Zeszyty Literackie” and "Rzeczpospolita.

next post to come...

Bibliography :
House on the Oniega (2006)
Woloka (2005)
Wilczy notes (1998)
The Journals of a White Sea Wolf (Harvill Pr , 2003)

anniversary...101 th post...already !!!

2007-08-24T03:05:00.000-07:00

photo: Berthe Bernage in 1965 ( born 1886, dead 1972)

I have been a bit silent lately...not that I'm not reading, can't live whithout it...not that I don't want to talk about it, can't live whithout it (lol)...
But I'm working hard on one of my French blogs. The French version for Oldwoman is "Je lis au lit" (I read in bed). It's true, I do read in bed. Alberto Manguel said "the pleasure of reading also depends on the our physical comfort" and I do agree...

But let's go back to Berthe Bernage, photo on the left...She's is the one I want to talk about. I have a special blog for her, "Berthe, Brigitte et Marie-Joe".

Berthe was the writer, Brigitte the main character and Marie-Joe is my mum. Berthe wrote many books between 1925 and 1972.

Daniela Di Cesco teaching in the University of Columbia wrote:

" The character of Brigitte first appeared in 1925 in the women’s magazine Les Veillées des chaumières as the prototypical adolescent girl of a column titled “Impressions de jeunes filles” (Impressions of Adolescent Girls). Brigitte instantly became the model for young girls of the period and the success of these portraits led to the publication of the first novel of the series, Brigitte: jeune fille, jeune femme (1928) . The commercial success of the Brigitte collection was due in large part to its presentation as authorized reading “to be safely read by all,” unlike novels by Colette or Victor Marguerite’s scandalous La garçonne, which were off-limits to young girls of the bourgeois class, (but were often read in secret for their sexual frankness). Passed down from mother to daughter, the Brigitte collection influenced generations of women".

My mother read the books and loved them. When she passed her A'Levels she was in the cave of Laval's castle because of the bombs falling on the town...June 1944..."Great expectations !"

She wrote about the writer expalining how she influenced her life and got a very good mark...Two years ago she found three of the books in the attic and was very disappointed...couldn't find any interest in that reading...thought she was stupid to have loved them...I had read the books, when a teenager, so I picked them up and started searching. I wanted to show Mum she was not stupid. She was like thousands of women who had loved Berthe Bernage...But I found very unpleasant things, as I read all the books, the 32 of the serie.

Unpleasant things about politics, war, Shoah...Berthe Bernage has been accused of being very implied in Petain's politics after 1940, her catholicism was said to be extreme...She had been accused of being very anti-feminist. And her readers were accused of the same things.

I thought it was unfair to accuse all the readers in such a way, and tried to understand, to sort things out...So I started a blog...

Now it's well on its way, but it's a huge work. To sort out the false and the true, to understand and interpret...

..................................................................................

It's also interesting to understand how a very intelligent and cultured writer managed to interest thousands of very simple women reading her stories through small magazines, "Semaine de Suzette" for young ones, "Veillées des chaumières" for the older ones...but Queen Elizabeth the second and her sister Margaret also used to read Semaine de Suzette...

So here I am... let you know more later...

Young writers...

2007-08-18T10:13:00.001-07:00

You'll find Jill on this website...and I first met her on this blog: French Toast Girl...

that's the Book Description

"As a young girl, BJ spent summers in the home of her two grandmothers, making friends there and even experiencing her first romantic longings. Now, accompanied by her five-year-old son, she returns to the quiet Pennsylvania lake town to claim the inheritance left by her grandmother. In doing so, she hopes to piece together her life, which has suddenly fallen apart after her husband walked out on their marriage.Nonna's legacy to her granddaughter proves not to be the Pennsylvania farmhouse but the discovery of an unmailed letter written by Nonna to BJ's own late mother. Stunned by its revelations, BJ finds that here-- among the ghosts of her grandmothers, the memories of her girlhood, and the tatters of her marriage--she must confront her history. With Nonna's notebooks to guide her, she unravels the long-held secrets of the two grandmothers who so deeply influenced her life and her art. But it is the reappearance of Travis, the object of her teenage crush, that forces her to confront unspoken truths and attempt a second chance at love. "

I have not read it yet, but sounds very interesting, relationships between young ones and grand-mothers are...and I must tell you I do love the book-cover, relly dreamy, a gorgeous dress, and the light so soft...it's so important when you decide to buy a book, a nice cover and a good title...

so long live that new writer...

Caramel (Arabic:سكر بنات Sukkar banat)

2007-08-16T07:22:00.001-07:00

Lebanon, Khalil Gibran's land...
Go and read Mereabeille 's post about the film Caramel...
Then read these lines from a poem written by Khalil Gibran جبران خليل جبران
Those are the children of your Lebanon.
They are, in your estimation, great; but insignificant in my estimation.
Let me tell you who are the children of my Lebanon.
They are farmers who would turn the fallow field into garden and grove.
They are the shepherds who lead their flocks through the valleys to be fattened for your table meat and your woollens.
They are the vine-pressers who press the grape to wine and boil it to syrup.
They are the parents who tend the nurseries, the mothers who spin the silken yarn.
They are the husbands who harvest the wheat and the wives who gather the sheaves.
They are the builders, the potters, the weavers and the bell-casters.
They are the poets who pour their souls in new cups.
They are those who migrate with nothing but courage in their hearts and strength in their arms but who return with wealth in their hands and a wreath of glory upon their heads.
They are the victorious wherever they go and loved and respected wherever they settle.
They are the ones born in huts but who died in palaces of learning.
These are the children of Lebanon; they are the lamps that cannot be snuffed by the wind and the salt which remains unspoiled through the ages.
They are the ones who are steadily moving toward perfection, beauty, and truth.

The whole text is here.

drowning myself in words...love it...leave me breathless...

2007-08-08T03:16:00.000-07:00

she's crazy...really...I do love her so much...

~~*~~*~~

The Fruit Shop Amy Lowell Cross-ribboned shoes; a muslin gown,
High-waisted, girdled with bright blue;
A straw poke bonnet which hid the frown
She pluckered her little brows into
As she picked her dainty passage through
The dusty street. "Ah, Mademoiselle,
A dirty pathway, we need rain,
My poor fruits suffer, and the shell
Of this nut's too big for its kernel, lain
Here in the sun it has shrunk again.
The baker down at the corner says
We need a battle to shake the clouds;
But I am a man of peace, my ways
Don't look to the killing of men in crowds.
Poor fellows with guns and bayonets for shrouds!
Pray, Mademoiselle, come out of the sun.
Let me dust off that wicker chair.
It's cool In here, for the green leaves I have run
In a curtain over the door, make a pool
Of shade. You see the pears on that stool --
The shadow keeps them plump and fair.
"Over the fruiterer's door, the leaves
Held back the sun, a greenish flare
Quivered and sparked the shop, the sheaves
Of sunbeams, glanced from the sign on the eaves,
Shot from the golden letters, broke
And splintered to little scattered lights.
Jeanne Tourmont entered the shop, her poke
Bonnet tilted itself to rights,
And her face looked out like the moon on nights
Of flickering clouds. "Monsieur Popain,
IWant gooseberries, an apple or two,
Or excellent plums, but not if they're high;
Haven't you some which a strong wind blew?
I've only a couple of francs for you.
"Monsieur Popain shrugged and rubbed his hands.
What could he do, the times were sad.
A couple of francs and such demands!
And asking for fruits a little bad.
Wind-blown indeed! He never had
Anything else than the very best.
He pointed to baskets of blunted pears
With the thin skin tight like a bursting vest,
All yellow, and red, and brown, in smears.
Monsieur Popain's voice denoted tears.
He took up a pear with tender care,
And pressed it with his hardened thumb.
"Smell it, Mademoiselle, the perfume there
Is like lavender, and sweet thoughts come
Only from having a dish at home.
And those grapes! They melt in the mouth like wine,
Just a click of the tongue, and they burst to honey.
They're only this morning off the vine,
And I paid for them down in silver money.
The Corporal's widow is witness, her pony
Brought them in at sunrise to-day.
Those oranges -- Gold! They're almost red.
They seem little chips just broken away
From the sun itself. Or perhaps instead
You'd like a pomegranate, they're rarely gay,
When you split them the seeds are like crimson spray.
Yes, they're high, they're high, and those Turkey figs,
They all come from the South, and Nelson's ships
Make it a little hard for our rigs.
They must be forever giving the slips
To the cursed English, and when men clips
Through powder to bring them, why dainties mounts
A bit in price. Those almonds now,
I'll strip off that husk, when one discounts
A life or two in a nigger row
With the man who grew them, it does seem how
They would come dear; and then the fight
At sea perhaps, our boats have heels
And mostly they sail along at night,
But once in a way they're caught; one feels
Ivory's not better nor finer -- why peels
From an almond kernel are worth two sous.
It's hard to sell them now," he sighed.
"Purses are tight, but I shall not lose.
There's plenty of cheaper things to choose.
"He picked some currants out of a wide
Earthen bowl. "They make the tongue
Almost fly out to suck them, bride
Currants they are, they were planted long
Ago for some new Marquise, among
Other great beauties, before the Chateau
Was left to rot. Now the Gardener's wife,
He that marched off to his death at Marengo,
Sells them to me; she keeps her life
From snuffing out, with her pruning knife.
She's a poor old thing, but she learnt the trade
When her man was young, and the young Marquis
Couldn't have enough garden. The flowers he made
All new! And the fruits! But 'twas said that he
Was no friend to the people, and so they laid
Some charge against him, a cavalcade
Of citizens took him away; they meant
Well, but I think there was some mistake.
He just pottered round in his garden, bent
On growing things; we were so awake
In those days for the New Republic's sake.
He's gone, and the garden is all that's left
Not in ruin, but the currants and apricots,
And peaches, furred and sweet, with a cleft
Full of morning dew, in those green-glazed pots,
Why, Mademoiselle, there is never an eft
Or worm among them, and as for theft,
How the old woman keeps them I cannot say,
But they're finer than any grown this way.
"Jeanne Tourmont drew back the filigree ring
Of her striped silk purse, tipped it upside down
And shook it, two coins fell with a ding
Of striking silver, beneath her gown
One rolled, the other lay, a thing
Sparked white and sharply glistening,
In a drop of sunlight between two shades.
She jerked the purse, took its empty ends
And crumpled them toward the centre braids.
The whole collapsed to a mass of blends
Of colours and stripes. "Monsieur Popain, friends
We have always been. In the days before
The Great Revolution my aunt was kind
When you needed help. You need no more;'
Tis we now who must beg at your door,
And will you refuse?" The little man
Bustled, denied, his heart was good,
But times were hard. He went to a pan
And poured upon the counter a flood
Of pungent raspberries, tanged like wood.
He took a melon with rough green rind
And rubbed it well with his apron tip.
Then he hunted over the shop to find
Some walnuts cracking at the lip,
And added to these a barberry slip
Whose acrid, oval berries hung
Like fringe and trembled. He reached a round
Basket, with handles, from where it swung
Against the wall, laid it on the ground
And filled it, then he searched and found
The francs Jeanne Tourmont had let fall."
You'll return the basket, Mademoiselle?
"She smiled, "The next time that I call,
Monsieur. You know that very well.
"'Twas lightly said, but meant to tell.
Monsieur Popain bowed, somewhat abashed.
She took her basket and stepped out.
The sunlight was so bright it flashed
Her eyes to blindness, and the rout
Of the little street was all about.
Through glare and noise she stumbled, dazed.
The heavy basket was a care.
She heard a shout and almost grazed
The panels of a chaise and pair.
The postboy yelled, and an amazed
Face from the carriage window gazed.
She jumped back just in time, her heart
Beating with fear. Through whirling light
The chaise departed, but her smart
Was keen and bitter. In the white
Dust of the street she saw a bright
Streak of colours, wet and gay,
Red like blood. Crushed but fair,
Her fruit stained the cobbles of the way.
Monsieur Popain joined her there."
Tiens, Mademoiselle, c'est le General Bonaparte, partant pour la Guerre!"

From Men, Women and Ghosts By Amy Lowell

Everyday rituals...

2007-08-01T09:40:00.000-07:00

When I put near my desk my favorite things, I feel peaceful...

Peaceful, Paisible, is my real name, the one I chose more than a year ago...

some tea, some perfume from the beautiful "stone"

and my friend , the white owl...

"These are a few of my favorite things..."

but no, no music when I write, read or blog, silence...

The joys of everyday rituals by Barbara Biziou

2007-07-26T02:34:00.000-07:00

Magical pebbles...pebbles from Scandinavia...pebbles from dreams- land...
I had them in thought when I started reading "The joys of everyday ritual" by Barbara Biziou...
These stones are in several blogs of mine...I sent them to friends through our Post-office...Audrey wondered lately about the blue one...actually there's no blue pebble...there're ordinary greyish stones...but once they've been scanned several times, colours reversed...you see their souls...
Everyday little things that change our lives sometimes...not the events of everyday life at first, but the way we feel, we behave...and afterwards may be the events themselves...
I found an interesting book, giving simple advices...I didn't throw it away as I did with J.Cameron ...Barbara isn't always refering to God, the experiences she talks about aren't mundane stories...May be I should not criticize Julia C. that way, but I feel close to Barbara, not to Julia...I know I haven't read all the book yet...
Made me wonder...
At this point of my life I feel like turning round and facing the past...I must go on sorting things out...I haven't finished my "life laundry"...
Why is it I feel so nostalgic when remenbering Christmas feasts, birthdays...
Why is it I want to get rid of all these memories...
Why is it I was so moved by the film "The barbarian invasions" by Denys Arcand, the film on death rituals...
Why is it we want to get free, to throw the past away, and on the other side to keep all these memories...
"We hunger for both community and communion, the feelings found in the meaningful practise of rituals" B.B. wrote...
I feel torn between the call of life in communities and the call of solitude and complete independance...

to be followed...

The blogs I love ...

2007-07-20T12:54:00.000-07:00

*I have been tagged by Taexalia my friend from Scotland...She said I was a Rockin' girl...I'm so proud...
*I have also been tagged by Le clown navet... What...you don't know this clown...You don't speak French ? Time to learn dear...

~~*~~*~~

so I'll answer both these friends ...
and give you first, five blogs I love... Blogs from French Blogland...
My clown does speak English too...And has another wonderful blog , "Dentelles d'encre"... That's a very interesting concept, if you know a beautiful text evocating needle works, fabrics, laces, wool, spinning, weaving...send it to Dentelles d'encre, the clown will put it on the blog...You may send it in English...and you'll see the wonderful things she creates... Another French girl started the same type with texts about food, cooking, drinking...She's very sweet... Her blog is called Délices de papier and is so yummy...Anne is a magician ...She makes patchworks, paintings so many things...her site is gorgeous... and if you want to dream, in colours of course visit Isa...It's really worth the visit... Wandering through le clown navet I also met La caméléonne...but it's so difficult to talk about it...you must visit it...
These blogs are what I call "Blogs de sorcières", blogs made by beautiful strong women...really Wild women...

But talking, talking...I forget to tell you seven things about myself...ouah... difficult...I suddenly feel a bit shy ...
1° I have something in common with Agatha Christie...guess what ?I love clotted cream...and I miss Devon cream-teas...loved it when I lived in England...and it never tastes the same if you prepare one in france...
2° Now, I do hope hubby isn't listening...I would have loved to share some men's lives for a little while...
Hugo Pratt, who created Corto Maltese,
Jim Harrison, could be his Naomi and share some nice bottles of wines,
Théodore Monod the scientist, traveller, philosopher...
Thomas Merton...let's see...when he was young? or when he was a monk ?
and and...of course...immediately, completely, whithout hesitating, whithout any shame, I would love to spend a night with Sean Connery...in a Scottish castle...Taexalia may be you could do something...
3°The dream is vanishing in the mist of Edinburgh...I come back...What is the thing I am the most proud of...Who am I the most proud of ? My son, hiding behind Cortobeille...His live, our life has been so so difficult...between hospitals, psy, emergencies...I don't think I'll ever completely recover...I still can't watch films showing violence in families and psychiatric problems...But now here he is at 27, he lost 60 kilos, he works, he manages to learn English, he lives between France and England and he is happy ...as much as he can...he accepted himself...
and I do love him...
4°The most extraordinary moment of my life...giving birth to my son...Leboyer method, very baba cool, music...and the feeling of being able to climb Mount Everest, to fly over the seas...to be so powerful, so feminine...that was a great privilege...
5°I remember the best wine I ever tasted...We were having dinner in a Catering school in France...invited by the Head-mistress, an extraordinary woman who loves books, food and wines...and we tasted some Carthagene...a rather sweet wine...so delicate, so fruity, so ravishing...a kiss...a sigh...it was...just...no not perfect...it didn't last for ever...French wines are the best ones...sorry to have to tell you that but they really are!!!!!!!!
6°What do I regret...I miss knitting...sewing by hand...embroidering for hours...it's more and more difficult for my fingers so painful sometimes...I would have loved to succeed in making clothes including patchwork, embroiderings...I spent a little time doing it...but was not brave enough, ready to fight...and I went back to schools...
7°What makes me happy...what gives me strength, energy, confidence, pleasure...what takes most of my free hours...the two pleasures of my life...books and blogs...
books are an old love-story...I always loved them...lived with and in them...they are my food, my comfort, my solace...
But I needed something else...One day I asked a colleague about website and blogs...could I do it, was it complicated...He looked at me and said: "Forget it...it's not for you..."
that was in February 2006...I now have two villages of blogs, one in English, one in French, and I also give a hand in blogger review groups... so happy, so proud !!!! and all by myself !!!!!
I DID IT GIRLS...I send him a card with the URL but never got any answer...may be he's jealous now...

~~/~~*~~\~~

Jealous of a short plumpie mousie aged 60...
a short plumpie mousie who says: Thank you girls, Tammy, Cate, Taexalia, Ruth, Pocamama , Clown, Anne, Leslie, Nikara, Laughing stone, Audrey, Rowan, Vic, Ocean...and all the others...Thank you girls, you are the best ones , you are great wild women and I do love you...

2007-07-02T01:55:00.000-07:00

I read very interesting things about Jim Harrison in Greg Rappleye's blog...Strangely enough, Harrison seems to be more popular in Europe than in America...wonder why...
I noticed also what a journalist said about "Returning to earth": "for the first time Harrison may really identify to a woman...(Cynthia)"...strange...
I also read: some journalists prepare articles about books whithout reading them...it seeems to be true...
What about Dalva, Naomi , Willow, Rachel, Frieda, Ruth...?

...........................................

"Returning to earth"is written as "The road home"...

Four chapters, four narrators...Donald, K, David and Cynthia...the story, I should say the stories are more powerful that way...each character has her, or his, own voice...that's important to me...

A woman won't tell a story the same way...and Harrison is a woman, when he gives her his voice...I can't quote Cynthia as I haven't read the book in English yet...but the way she talks about the man she loved, the way she misses him, his body, his fragrance is deeply feminine...

Strange to imagine that man, that rough Jim, writing with a delicate pencil...The magical writing...

.......................................

I also love the crow on the book-cover...Russell Chatham is a great artist...

"Returning to earth" by Jim Harrison

2007-07-01T10:47:00.000-07:00

“I'm laying here talking to Cynthia because that's about all I can do with my infirmity. We're living in Cynthia's old house in Marquette in order to be close to the doctors. Her brother David usually lives here but he's off taking a look at different parts of the world but mostly Mexico. Cynthia and I ran away in our teens and got married and now she's back where she started. My dad, Clarence, did the yard work for her family for about thirty years. My bed is in her father's den because it's too hard for me to get upstairs. One wall of the den is full of books with a moving ladder to get to the top shelves. Cynthia says her brother lives inside these books and never really got out. I'm forty-five and it seems I'm to leave earth early but these things happen to people.”

I'll tell you more tomorrow but it's a great Harrison...

Colette, part 1...

2007-06-15T10:17:00.000-07:00

2007-06-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

Wonderful Colette, extraordinary Colette...her words are in all French school-books for children....Erica Jong wrote a poem about Colette...In "A year in the World, Journey of a passionate traveller" Frances Mayes wrote beautiful lines about the French writer...when F.M. studied at university she had problems with her professor...Wright Morris wanted the students to work on men writers only...Virginia Woolf herself wasn't really good enough to be on his list !
So Frances Mayes chosed Keats, Louise Bogan and Colette...The head professor said: "Colette, did she write anything interesting? didn't she dance in Folies Bergères?"...

I agree with Frances Mayes, Erica Jong and so many people, I do love Colette , I always did...Especially since a teacher at college told me it was immoral reading...and I read all she wrote...but one day I discovered part of her letters, those she sent her daughter...and I then realized what a poor mother she was...never taking care of her daughter...not even given a first name of her own...she called her Colette, Colette de Jouvenel...but Colette was her mother's second name...Something changed in my head...
So as I have now plenty free time to read I started reading a huge book...more than 2 kilos of paper, 446 pages and hundreds of documents...
I'm discovering quite a different Colette...I still love her...but I'll read her with different eyes...

........................................................

2007-06-07T07:41:00.000-07:00

I do hope my post about "The Interpreter" by Alice Kaplan won't hurt any readers...I was just upset by some lines...
Read the book it's great...

The interpreter by Alice Kaplan

2007-06-06T05:49:00.000-07:00

forgive me for writing this post with such poor words...but that book touched me so deeply...it's very difficult to talk about it...It's the story of a young GI hung in Brittany during the war...the story of French people too...the story of a great writer Louis Guilloux...and the story of my part of France...it just shows us also how wars are stupid, how stereotypes are crual...

the small brown photo on the right is the cover of a book written by Louis Guilloux and translated by A. Kaplan...it tells the same story...

.......................................................................

I'm reading a book "The interpreter" by Alice Kaplan...the story takes place in Saint Brieuc where I live and in the neighbourhood...I wanted to give you some excerpts but my translation won't be to good...anyway, it gives you an idea ...

let's meditate this also :""""from an American Journalist:When the Americans helped to free Brittany in the summer of 1944, they were determined to treat the French differently than had the Nazi occupiers of the previous four years.(very nice of them ...thank you so much...?!!?)

From the official documents given to GI's before they went to France:"Breton man is introvert, he's not a latin...is not joyful...he's peaceful, introvert, taciturn...in Brittany even jy is a bit sad...sometimes he may enjoy himself but alcohol makes him irritable...

he doesn't like foreigners...as for Breton women: don't pay to much attention to their having love affairs with german soldiers...this race is naturally sensual...don't say anything about houing and hygiena...very often men and animals shared the same places...""""that's a bad translation, but it gives you an idea...take the book, it's in the second chapter...""""""""""""""""""of course that was a long time ago...in 1943...today things have changed...the marshall plan went through this...Russia and Bush are quarreling over our heads...Bush wants to built some radar-system in Tchequie

and I cried and cried when reading this book...

the way black soldiers were considered...the way Breton of low classes were considered...that has nothing to do with you personnaly of course...but it's just to illustrate how such prejudices can hurt people deeply.

we are said not to understand American people...as well as american people are supposed not to understand europeans...stupid indeed...

when somebody tells me: I don't like parisians...i ask: ah, yes, which one? give me a name...you are allowed not to like Mr so and so, but you can say you don't like people if you don't know them...

.yesterday I watched a very interesting program on Tv: it was about Virginia city in Nevada...the story of the town...how film-makers talked about westerns, saloons, full of violence, so rough...and how they were taking out of the ground they were digging, beautiful plates, delicate glasses...stereotypes........................................................

read "the solace of open spaces" by Gretel Ehrlich...you'll see such a powerful image of cow-boys far from the old stereotypes.

a French singer made a song:"I would love olympic games, if there were no flags, no hymns...just men and women trying to do their best, trying to improve human race, trying to know and love each others"

let me dream of such a world...

Travel litterature

2007-05-31T02:17:00.000-07:00

Nicole-Lise Bernheim: Saisons Japonaises
Isabelle Jarry: Voyage au Ténéré
Denise Desjardins: La route et le chemin
Michèle Demai: Alaska dream

......................................

four very different books

four very different women

just a few questions:

why do we travel...

what do we look for when travelling...landscapes, countries, people, ourselves, god, truth...

what do we fly away from: boredom, ourselves...

what do we find...

why do we go...

why do we come back...

and a few words:

I would never take a baby on a long journey through India in full summer...I would not travel with powder-milk when breast feeding is so easy and natural...

I'm terrified when seeing the relationships between these young people and their "gourous" in India...such dependency...

American men writers...stories about men...

2007-05-17T08:03:00.000-07:00

"When we were wolves" short stories by Jon Billman

The characters are just so nice, so fragile, strong, completely crazy, so funny, so moving, whimsical....
a gallery of strange guys mostly...
There're the two firemen who no longer fight fires...they've been sent away...they prefer fishing or hunting...nothing to do...drink yes...always time for a drink...and one day there're a beautiful fire, so important, so great, so exciting !!!!
There're Wayne and his friend Strain...One teaches ...when he gets time...history...history or stories????They have girl friends...so beautiful...And Wayne paints...paintings on canvas of course...but who is that man, those men who painted a gorgeous woman on a train, at night of course...or another one on a water-tower...and queer messages the local mormons don't like?????
There're the "Indians", the local prisoners playing base-ball...losing all the time...until one day...what happened to the priest??????????????

2007-05-16T23:06:00.000-07:00

"Where rivers change directions" from Mark Spragg

I love the words, the poetic words, strong as powerful as the mountain, the ice, the winter...

I love the people...the little boy , the adults, the parents, all of them...

I love the country...the ranch lost in the mountain...the school...

A book about childhood, hard life, wild country, winter, a book about solitude and friendship, education, animals, nature...

The unsaid words, the silence, the little things done to friends, to help silently, the wood ready for the stove, the knife well -sharpened...the "modesty" of these men...

(I don't really know what word to use, in my dictionary I found "decency and modesty", but I'm not sure...in French I'd say "pudeur"...when you don't always say what you think, how you feel, when you keep your feelings deep inside, though they're so strong, just because you don't like to show off...)

I love John, the adult, the friend, the ...could I say the second father???

The relationships between men and animals...(not talking about the stupid tourists of course...)

It's so interesting for a woman to get to know these men...to read Mark Spragg 's memoirs...to realize how thin the difference between men and women may be...human beings...that's what we all are...

Isabella Bird

2007-05-14T07:29:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading "A lady's life in rocky mountains"...that's just great!!!incredible...what a dear wild woman...

I'm not used to give a list of websites but there was so many things I wanted to tell you about Isabella Bird and so little words in my vocabulary...so here's the list...
Isabella: her life
Isabella in Japan
Isabella and Estes Park
Isabella a woman traveller
more about women travellers
Isabella, Japan and Scotland
and more

finally, the text on this wonderful site, where you can find plenty old books and texts...

now read her, please read her...that woman is just extraordinary...tiny, always ill when she was in the UK...and then as a doctor told her to travel she went...no more health problems...she walked and rode, with sometimes a horse so high that she had to carry a small ladder to go on his back...at fourty she discovered love existed and cold, heat, hunger, mountains, wild countries, wild people, desperados, pionneers...if she wanted to do something , to climb a mountain or cross a river she did it...
may be she tore a bit her "hawaïen dress", had to borrow old boots...had to sleep with ants or snakes or....with so little money...
with so many principles...always trying to look clean and cool...
and never forget she was born in 1831 ?!!!!

Death in stories...

2007-04-21T09:31:00.000-07:00

It's necessary from time to time to reread this old story...You find it in many civilization, under different names...so important to remember death is necessary... Speaking about tales I don't like it when people praised Brothers Grimm...We must not forget they carefully selected and expurgated the tales they picked up in old German villages...These tales had to serve or at least not disturbed Aryan ideology...so let's be careful...

Aunty Misery
************
This is a story about an old, very old woman who lived alone in her little hut with no other company than a beautiful pear tree that grew at her door. She spent all her time taking care of her pear tree. But the neighborhood children drove the old woman crazy by stealing her fruit. They would climb her tree, shake its delicate limbs, and run away with armloads of golden pears, yelling insults at "Aunty Misery," as they called her.
One day a pilgrim stopped at the old woman's hut and asked her permission to spend the night under her roof. Aunty Misery saw that he had an honest face and bade the traveler come in. She fed him and made a bed for him in front of her hearth. In the morning, while he was getting ready to leave, the stranger told her that he would show his gratitude for her hospitality by granting her one wish.
"There is only one thing that I desire," said Aunty Misery.
"Ask and it shall be yours," replied the stranger, who was a sorcerer in disguise.
"I wish that anyone who climbs up my pear tree should not be able to come back down until I permit it."
"Your wish is granted," said the stranger, touching the pear tree as he left Aunty Misery's house.
And so it happened that when the children came back to taunt the old woman and to steal her fruit, she stood at her window watching them. Several of them shimmied up the trunk of the pear tree and immediately got stuck to it as if with glue. She let them cry and beg for a long time before she gave the tree permission to let them go, on the condition that they would never steal her fruit or bother her.
Time passed, and both Aunty Misery and her tree grew bent and gnarled with age. One day another traveler stopped at her door. This one looked suffocated and exhausted, so the old woman asked him what he wanted in her village. He answered her in a voice that was dry and hoarse, as if he had swallowed a desert. "I am Death, and I have come to take you with me."
Thinking fast, Aunty Misery said, "All right, but before I go, I would like to pluck some pears from my beloved pear tree, to remember how much pleasure it brought to me in this life. But, I am a very old woman and cannot climb to the tallest branches where the best fruit is; will you be so kind as to do it for me?"
With a heavy sigh like wind through a catacomb, Death climbed the pear tree. Immediately he became stuck to it as if with glue. And no matter how much he cursed and threatened, Aunty Misery would not give the tree permission to release Death.
Many years passed, and there were no deaths in the world. The people who make their living from death began to protest loudly. The doctors claimed no one bothered to come in for examinations or treatments anymore because they did not fear dying; the pharmacists' business suffered, too, because medicines are, like magic potions, bought to prevent or postpone the inevitable; the priests and undertakers were unhappy with the situation also, for obvious reasons. There were also many old folks tired of life who wanted to pass on to the next world to rest from the miseries of this one.
Aunty Misery realized all this, and not wishing to be unfair, she made a deal with her prisoner, Death: if he promised not ever to come for her again, she would give him his freedom. He agreed. And that is why so long as the world is the world, Aunty Misery will always live.

tagged by Tammy

2007-04-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

Tammy Vitale tagged me yesterday...I was ever so surprised, and honoured as well...I thought, well I'm not as mad as some people said when I built my village of blogs.
I've been blogging for a year now and it's really a great experience...I discovered so many people...But now I must choose five and it's a bit difficult...

-In blog-land you get to know extraordinary women and one of these is named RUTH...
How can I explain...how can I describe her...for months and months she has been fighting to keep her husband alive...he passed away on before Easter...She's so brave, so cheerful, so dignified, so good-hearted...It's really a great privilege to be her friend...Read "There are a million stories in the naked city"...there's so much to learn...

-Blog visiting may also be a journey through dreams , entertainement, poetry , humour, invention, magic....You get to know wonderful creatures...In Plumpiemousie I'm a small plumpie mousie, but i'm not the only small animal I have a great friend, a great great friend...I'm very proud today to introduce BOB T'BEAR...It's impossible to describe him...It's such a pleasure to visit him and all his teddy bears friends...

-When I retired I thought I was going to weave again, dye wools...but up to now I haven't and went back to sewing instead...But as wools, spinning, dyeing...always fascinate me I started visiting a beautiful place, "At the top of Squirrel Spur"...There Leslie lives, Leslie and her animals, Leslie and her wool, Leslie the magician of colours...and it's such a pleasure to go up the hill, go to the fair, visit her friends...She also has another blog where she talks about books and that's interesting...

-Now do you know where Borrou is ? no ? it's a small French village ...There's a farm in that village , a farm named "La ferme de Sourrou"...and in this farm a couple lives...Fabrice Funerot and Irene Kightley also called "Hardworkinghippy" on the web...they breed all sorts of animals angora goats, pigs, sheep...The farm uses solar electricity and wind energy...they do organic permanent culture...They are true people...they have a dream and they follow it, even when it's difficult...

-It's difficult to finish...but I can't do without talking about a magic place owned by a magic lady..."Beyond the fields we know"...In the eastern Ontario highlands lives a beautiful poet, photographer, designer...Her name is Cate, Kerr de lune...If you're interested in Buddhism, poetry, nature...if you long for full moons, iced mornings ...if you like to read words sparkling on stones and rivers...if you like reading, listening to music, meditating...She's a true wild woman...

some lost posts...

2007-04-16T03:24:00.000-07:00

I just realized some posts about books are in my friend's blog...(shhh...nobody knows we are the same persons...lol...)
So in Mereabeille's library you'll discover:
Christina of Markyate, a really great woman ....
Fabienne Verdier, a French artist who studied in China...
and the story of Amish people told by Anne Rolland-Licour...

Isabelle Jarry, "J'ai nom sans bruit"

2007-04-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

That's a really beautiful novel...written in a powerful way, with watery words, simple and deep, poetic and strong like poems of the 15th century, these poems Marie loves...
Marie was a poet, but her love is dead and she's out of money, out of home, out of child...For months she lives in the streets of Paris...

That novels criticizes a society in which creativity is in danger, in which hope dwindles...people get transparent...Marie dedicated her life to art and refused the tyranny of money. She would rather be poor and live whithout comfort than lose her soul...
After several months in the streets, she leaves Paris for a small house in the countryside...There she tries to survive, waiting for her daughter Nisa to come back...
She survives, but she gradually loses her treasure, her wealth, her extraordinary fortune, she loses words...she can no longer write and soon she can no longer communicate with people...She can only remember some of these poems she learnt, poems from François Villon for instance, written in that beautiful old French ...

But one day she finds the strength to go back to Paris and to fetch her five years old daughter...Nisa is back...Life will come back...Marie is saved...

François Villon...15th century

2007-04-12T12:38:00.000-07:00

L’Epitaphe Villon: Ballade Des Pendus

My brothers who live after us,
Don’t harden you hearts against us too,
If you have mercy now on us,
God may have mercy upon you.
Five, six, you see us, hung out to view.
When the flesh that nourished us well
Is eaten piecemeal, ah, see it swell,
And we, the bones, are dust and gall,
Let no one make fun of our ill,
But pray that God absolves us all.

No need, if we cry out to you, brothers,
To show disdain, if we’re in suspense
For justice’s sake. How few of the others,
Are men equipped with common sense.
Pray for us, now beyond violence,
To the Son of the Virgin Mary,
So of grace to us she’s not chary,
Shields us from Hell’s lightning fall.
We’re dead: the souls let no man harry,
But pray that God absolves us all.

The rain has soaked us, washed us: skies
Of hot suns blacken us, scorch us: crows
And magpies have gouged out our eyes,
Plucked at our beards, and our eyebrows.
There’s never a moment’s rest allowed:
Now here, now there, the changing breeze
Swings us, as it wishes, ceaselessly,
Beaks pricking us more than a cobbler’s awl.
So don’t you join our fraternity,
But pray that God absolves us all.
Prince Jesus, who has all sovereignty,
Preserve us from Hell’s mastery.
We’ve no business down there at all.
Men, you’ve no time for mockery.
But pray to God to absolve us all.

Tu Fu and the Spring

2007-03-23T13:12:00.001-07:00

A Spring View
************
Though a country be sundered, hills and rivers endure;
And spring comes green again to trees and grasses
Where petals have been shed like tears
And lonely birds have sung their grief....
After the war-fires of three months,
One message from home is worth a ton of gold....
I stroke my white hair. It has grown too thin
To hold the hairpins any more.

TU-FU (712 - 770)

He was a Chinese Poet , he ranks together with his friend Li Tai-po as one of the greatest poets and social critics in Chinese history.

Mistress of spices by Chitra Banerjee

2007-02-24T09:37:00.000-08:00

What a delicious book, yummy and comforting, perfumed and colourful...What a great wild woman...Tilo is so moving , so real though so mysterious...A tale...A story...and so more...where's the limit between tale and reality...between love and compassion...love and duty...love and freedom...
If you wish to know more about Chitra Banerjee read this interview...
and don't forget the spices, whenever you cook or prepare herbal teas use them and ask:"Tilo which is the best?" if you give yourself time and dream, you'll hear her answer...

2007-02-24T09:25:00.000-08:00

""""I am a Mistress of Spices. I can work the others too. Mineral, metal, earth and sand and stone. The gems with their cold clear light. The liquids that burn their hues into your eyes till you see nothing else. I learned them all on the island. But the spices are my love. I know their origins, and what their colors signify, and their smells. I can call each by the true-name it was given at the first, when earth split like skin and offered it up to the sky. Their heat runs in my blood. From amchur to zafran, they bow to my command. At a whisper they yield up to me their hidden properties, their magic powers. Yes, they all hold magic, even the everyday American spices you toss unthinking into your cooking pot. You doubt? Ah. You have forgotten the old secrets your mother's mothers knew. Here is one of them again: Vanilla beans soaked soft in goat's milk and rubbed on the wristbone can guard against the evil eye. And here another: A measure of pepper at the foot of the bed, shaped into a crescent, cures you of nightmare. But the spices of true power are from my birthland, land of ardent poetry, aquamarine feathers. Sunset skies brilliant as blood. They are the ones I work with."""

Erica, Colette and Claudine...

2007-02-15T06:38:00.000-08:00

Dear Erica,
Thank you for your books...thank you for giving a voice to us, the women who can't publish books...and thank you for loving Colette, our Colette, our pride...I read all her books, several times, she's in that blog, you're in that blog as well...I love you both...
and by the way, a long time ago, before I settled in Plumpiemousie, my name was Claudine and I lived in France...so one day, Claudine illustrated your poem using Colette's photos...

Dear Colette, by Erica Jong

2007-02-15T06:34:00.000-08:00

Dorothy Parker...

2007-02-07T12:56:00.000-08:00

Dorothy Parker (August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American writer and poet, best known for her caustic wit, wisecracks, and sharp eye for 20th century urban foibles.
dixit Wikepedia...
I'm getting to know her...had quite a laugh reading "The Hate Verses"...some critics don't like it...but really I did...
I also loved the following text...

Symptom Recital
I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the simplest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
For what I think, I'd be arrested.
I am not sick. I am not well.
My quondam dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore:
I do not like me any more.
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of men.
I'm due to fall in love again.

Incredible Amy Lowell (1874-1925)

2007-01-28T11:51:00.000-08:00

I decided some time ago to find more about that poetess...OMG (is that what to say?!!)...She was such a character, the way she often dressed like a man, the way she smoke the cigar, wore a pince-nez, slept with sixteen pillows...the way she wraped her guests in towels to protect them from her dogs'"affectionate habits"...and that story of Boston marriage. In the 19th century!!!When I think about all the fuss, the fight, the discussion about marriage between two people of the same sex all over Europe and when I learn it was possible in Boston in the 19th century!!!you imagine my surprise...And those women weren't even bound to be lesbians...It's extraordinary, but why don't people talk more about it...Amy Lowel and her friend Ada Dwyer Russell lived such a marriage...I'm not at all interested to know if they were having sex or not. It was their lives, the lived it the way they wanted to and it's nobody's business...But it's really a great story...yesterday a friend told me I was a brazen mousie, I didn't know the word and found it very funny...But such women were completely brazen for the society weren't they? if not we must be very old fashioned...That's great to discover such nice talentuous women...

Madonna of the Evening Flowers

All day long I have been working,
Now I am tired.
I call: "Where are you?"
But there is only the oak tree rustling in the wind.
The house is very quiet,
The sun shines in on your books,
On your scissors and thimble just put down,
But you are not there.
Suddenly I am lonely:
Where are you?I go about searching.
Then I see you,
Standing under a spire of pale blue larkspur,
With a basket of roses on your arm.
You are cool, like silver,
And you smile.
I think the Canterbury bells are playing little tunes.
You tell me that the peonies need spraying,
That the columbines have overrun all bounds,
That the pyrus japonica should be cut back and rounded.
You tell me these things.
But I look at you, heart of silver,
White heart-flame of polished silver,
Burning beneath the blue steeples of the larkspur.
And I long to kneel instantly at your feet,
While all about us peal the loud, sweet `Te Deums' of the Canterbury bells.

It's young, fresh, vivid, full of love, just beautiful...
Amy , you really were an incredible woman...
PS: she would be a beautiful character in a film...

China painting and calligraphy...

2007-01-21T03:17:00.000-08:00

Butterfly above Water

-- Citation from Dogen's BAIKA:
"This is the time for humans and heavenly beings
to turn towards attaining the way,
as the old Buddha's dharma wheel is turned
to the extreme limit of the entire world.

Even clouds, rain, wind and water,
as well as grass, trees, and insects,
do not fail to receive the benefit of this teaching.
Heaven and earth, and land
are vigorously turned by this dharma wheel."

I read with such pleasure the book written by Fabienne Verdier that I'm looking for more texts and illustrations...I discovered a beautiful website, with excerpts, poems, drawings and photos...you must have a look at it...You'll see the butterfly flying above the water...
It's called Early Women Masters...

The master butchers singing club

2007-01-15T09:45:00.000-08:00

I like Louise Erdrich, I enjoyed reading Love medicine...The master butchers is nice too...just a bit too much... may be...too lyrical...but there's Step and a half , the street walker, and it's worth reading the book to discover this woman...Step and a half and Roy..."a rangy stray dog of a woman who moved with the air of ancient bitterness"...picking up discarded rubbish at night to recycle and sell later.
Step and a half who holds so deep secrets...and Roy who tries to forget all the sorrows and fears in alcohool...such a strange and powerful couple...The last pages of the book are the most powerful...
I was a bit annoyed while reading the story of these German immigrants...could not help thinking about The accordion crimes by Annie Proulx...a bit similar...and it was not the best Annie Proulx anyway...
The more you read ...the more difficult it's to be fully satisfied...
The good point is this: having read so many books for work, I can skip the parts I don't like and concentrate on my favorites...

first collage: poetry..."The camp" by Mary Robinson

2007-01-11T12:08:00.000-08:00

I wanted to try collages...not soul ones...to difficult up to now...the pictures I see in magazines are too "beautiful"...I need some old and wrinkled pictures! so my first attempt was for Mary Robinson's poem...the fonts are a bit small so I copied the text in the previous post...Actually I wanted something full of little figures, but it's very difficult to find figures from the 18th century or evocating it...As I worked on books from the public-library I photocopied and then cut out...It's quite a pleasant work to cut out the silhouettes...but they aren't small enough...I would have like dozens of them a bit like in Jerome Bosch's paintings...the other thing is I work with the scanner to upload the final picture...so the page as to measure 21cm on 29.7cm...Perhaps I could make bigger ones and take a photo...but my camera's not good enough for such a work...
I think I'll try to illustrate smaller texts or just a few verses next time...

But the very interesting thing was the reading of the text...I really enjoyed it , the way it's written, all those nouns and adjectives without any verbs, you've got the feeling somebody is reciting the poem aloud...funny enough it reminded me of slam, that new poetic language... you hear people breathe and speak and it comes from so deep inside you...

I put a small silhouette on the right hand side to pay an hommage to Perdita ...though her gown isn't Greek...Maybe the problem is there, maybe I was not obliged to chose pictures from the 18th century, but it was a pleasant challenge...

2007-01-10T05:07:00.000-08:00

Mary Robinson
(late 18th century)

The Camp

Tents, marquees, and baggage-waggons;
Suttling-houses, beer in flagons;
Drums and trumpets, singing, firing;
Girls seducing, beaux admiring;
Country lasses gay and smiling,
City lads their hearts beguiling;
Dusty roads, and horses frisky,
Many an Eton Boy in whisky;
Tax'd carts full of farmers' daughters;
Brutes condemn'd, and man who slaughters!
Public-houses, booths, and castles,
Belles of fashion, serving vassals;
Lordly gen'rals fiercely staring,
Weary soldiers, sighing, swearing!
Petit-maitres always dressing,
In the glass themselves caressing;
Perfum'd, painted, patch'd, and blooming
Ladies -- manly airs assuming!
Dowagers of fifty, simp'ring,
Misses for their lovers whimp'ring;
Husbands drilled to household tameness;
Dames heart sick of wedded sameness.
Princes setting girls a-madding,
Wives for ever fond of gadding;
Princesses with lovely faces,
Beauteous children of the Graces!
Britain's pride and virtue's treasure,
Fair and gracious beyond measure!
Aid-de-camps and youthful pages,
Prudes and vestals of all ages!
Old coquets and matrons surly,
Sounds of distant hurly-burly!
Mingled voices, uncouth singing,
Carts full laden, forage bringing;
Sociables and horses weary,
Houses warm, and dresses airy;
Loads of fatten'd poultry; pleasure
Serv'd (to nobles) without measure;
Doxies, who the waggons follow;
Beer, for thirsty hinds to swallow;
Washerwomen, fruit-girls cheerful,
Ancient ladies -- chaste and fearful!!
Tradesmen, leaving shops, and seeming
More of war than profit dreaming;
Martial sounds and braying asses,
Noise, that ev'ry noise surpasses!
All confusion, din, and riot,
Nothing clean -- and nothing quiet.

Sunday poem by Erica Jong

2007-01-07T09:10:00.000-08:00

Wrinkles by Erica Jong

For Naomi Lazard Sometimes I can't wait until I look like Nadezhda Mandelstam.

My friends are tired.
The ones who are married are tired
of being married.
The ones who are single are tired
of being single.

They look at their wrinkles.
The ones who are single attribute their wrinkles
to being single.
The ones who are married attribute their wrinkles
to being married.

They have very few wrinkles.
Even taken together,
they have very few wrinkles.
But I cannot persuade them
to look at their wrinkles
collectively.
& I cannot persuade them that being married
or being single
has nothing to do with wrinkles.

Each one sees a deep & bitter groove,
a San Andreas fault across her forehead.
"It is only a matter of time
before the earthquake.
"They trade the names of plastic surgeons
like recipes.

My friends are tired.
The ones who have children are tired
of having children.
The ones who are childless are tired
of being childless.

They love their wrinkles.
If only their were deeper
they could hide.

Sometimes I think
(but do not dare to tell them)
that when the face is left alone to dig its grave,
the soul is grateful
& rolls in.

Erica Jong

a poem dedicated to me...

2007-01-02T15:21:00.000-08:00

isn't it extraordinary, in 1785 the famous poet Robert Burns dedicated me a poem...to me the little mousie, I was famous and nobody had told me...

I feel happy oh so happy la la la la....

Robert Burns 1785

2007-01-02T15:20:00.000-08:00

To a Mouse
On Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough, November 1785
Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!
I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request:
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,
An' never miss't!
Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin,
Baith snell an' keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an' wast,
An' weary Winter comin fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell--
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.
That wee-bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald.
To thole the Winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!
But Mousie, thou are no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!
Still, thou art blest, compar'd wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!
Robert Burns

Her name was Anjela...

2006-12-31T11:22:00.000-08:00

Once again, let's listen to Anjela Duval...

Pedenn evit ur bloaz nevez
PRAYER FOR A NEW YEAR

Lord! Father of the Universe
And Father of all Creatures
Spirit and Matter
Today hear if she asks
The least of your children
Who loves you from the depths of her heart
Her happiness to live forever...
Before you like a child before his father
With neither pain nor suspicion
I start a new Year
In the beginning of the springtime.
What will be? I am in your hands.
Respectful?... Yes. Obedient? Hardly...
But may Your Will be done
And may a morsel of wisdom descend on my old age
So that my time will not be empty or vain
Give me Love and Enlightenment
Sufficient to share with others who
Stumble and grope on the Way
That Way so narrow that leads to Eternity...

Amen.

4/3/76 the 72nd
[birthday]Read this poem in breton
Translated by Lenora Timm

I'm not used to prayers, but from time to time such words from an humble woman and a great artist are a good soul medicine...let's all have a very happy new year...a peaceful one...

Dorothy M. Johnson [1905-1984]

2006-12-23T10:11:00.000-08:00

Yes I know, we aren't on Thursday, but I just discovered this "meme", is it the real word? and I opened it with that great lady in the French blog...so I couldn't do less than welcoming Dorothy in this page...You must think I'm very familiar with that lady but I'm sure she was not a fussy woman...

In the title of this post, there's a link with the page the Missoulians dedicated to her...That's nice to see how writers are considered in that part of the world...

I'm ashamed of saying I read "The hanging tree" only yesterday...

I love Montana writers, I'm trying to read everything about them...and the people working in the public library of my town managed to find me three books from Dorothy Johnson, in another public library...They're such cute ones...

It was a big shock...like when I read Annie Proulx for the first time...these women writers are just incredible...In France now Annie Proulx isn't read much...and anyway most readers only know "The secret of Brokeback mountains", not even the full book of Wyoming short stories...

but Dorothy Johnson...

Michel Le Bris who wrote the preface of "When you and I were young, Whitefish" said : "she never uses a single useless word"...it's so true...so strong, so direct, so modest...I wonder if that word is the right one...oh dear me, I wish my English was perfect!!!

These characters are so deep inside, so sensitive inside though so rough outside...Like men working in Breton lighthouses, trappers in the north of Scandinavia, or people living high in the mountains...

Frail who looked so terrifying but who only had in mind:"are you the one who will hang me?

"Lost woman" rushing to save the man she loved without a word...

Dorothy was also a great woman, she worked hard, had a difficult life...her mother used to say: "never leave a job before finding another one"...When she managed to sell her first short story to the Saturday Evening post, she got 400 dollars...she used to earn 100 a month with her job. She wrote: "I thought that was it, I was famous...But then it took me a eleven years to sell the next story. I never forgot this lesson..."

READ her, don't watch the films..."John Ford was a tough old bastard, wouldn't give a kopeck..."

I'm actually reading:

-The hanging tree

-When you and I were young, Whitefish, and

-Indian country

and I'm really having a great time...

The art of simplicity by Dominique Loreau

2006-12-15T12:17:00.000-08:00

Dominique Loreau lives in Japan. In that country she discovered how to live simply, with just a few beautiful things...How to eat simply, to give food to one's body, not filling it with anything...How to dress, make up or not...Find one's way...Simplify one's life...
You just need one or two cases to travel towards "Beyond the fields" ...Have your head and soul full of beauty, poetry...Learn to look at things, take care of your soul and body instead of worrying about power and gadgets...
and read Haïkus:
"During Spring in my cabin
Absolutely nothing,
Absolutely everything."
(Kobayashi Issa)

Clarissa Pinkola Estés

2006-12-13T10:36:00.000-08:00

Lucie wanted to know which was the book I was standing by on the front page of Plumpiemousie.
It's "Women who run with the wolves".
C.Pinkola Estes is a poet, a Jungian psychoanalyst and the keeper of many stories...
This book changed many things in my life...I found it a day I was very depressed...I was caught by the stories immediately...I needed several months to read it...You must take your time...Read, think, live, reread...
It's a book you must have near you, in your bag, near your bed...A book you're are going to turn and turn, and write on, and put post-its on...It may not look beautiful, but the older it gets the lighter you feel...you'll realize through all the stories, you aren't alone...You belong to the woman-family...and women have so many things in common, whatever their lives have been...
You'll discover things about yourself, what hurt you, what made you be what you are...and may be one day you'll start accepting yourself...
"I once dreamt I was telling stories and felt someone patting my foot in encouragement. I looked down and saw that I was standing on the shoulders of an old woman who was steadying my ankles and smiling up at me.
I said to her, "No, no, come stand on my shoulders for you're old and I'm young".
"No, no", she insisted, "this is the way it is supposed to be."
I saw that she stood on the shoulders of a woman far older than she, who stood on the shoulders of ....
I believed the old dream-woman about the way it was supposed to be. The nurture for telling stories comes from the might and endowments of my people who have gone before me...
.....If there is a single source of story and the numen of the story, this long chain of humans it is."

Sue Hubbell, again, always and ever...

2006-12-08T10:23:00.000-08:00

yes, I know, Sue Hubbell again...but I love her so very much...found a new book today...
when you're a woman you can't help loving such words...so straight and simple...
if you didn't read the previous posts about that writer, go and buy: "A country year, living the questions..."
« From here to there and back again »by Sue Hubbell
My grand-mother....
« Her family was like no one else's. Y scholl-friends had fathers and grand-fathers who did things, but in her family the women had been the doers. It wasn't that there weren't men-folks in my grand-mother's stories. There were lots of them, but they died young, or were drifters and dreamers who disappeared or turned to drink or succumbed to melancholia or slow-mortal diseases. The women on the other hand were full of spit and vinegar until the end.
What I learned from her stories was this: women could do hard things and do them competently; problems could be worked out if you ignored what everyone else told you and did what the situation required; sometimes there are men around and sometimes not, but life goes on pretty much the same either way.
Those were not bad lessons to learn growing up in the 1930's, when most of the worls's messages said something else to a woman-child. »

Keeping the distance, by Kenneth White

2006-12-04T15:45:00.000-08:00

Kro-Kro

that's the call of the crested tern
the gray one
the shaggy-haired one

the one who keeps always to the edge
the tidal sand
never going inland

approach him
he'll give you a wary glance
out of the corner of his eye

then wing away powerfully
over the sea
with that harsh, wild

kro!

AIDS

2006-12-01T09:41:00.001-08:00

I Still
By Gene Valentine
July 2004
I still ...miss you even if you don't miss me.think of you even if you don't think of me.wonder whether you were really my special friend or justanother man playing pretend?
I won't believe that it was a lie, that all the love,passion, lust, tears,laughter, & joy you gave me were untrue but where are younow? I'm still herewaiting, wondering where you've been & do you still callyourself my friend?
I still ...question if you really cared when I became sick & if so,why were we over so quick?need you to hold me & tell me how you'll be there 'tilthe end.long to hear your voice again.
It's been 333 days & 999 pills. The virus is at bay now,but like all enemiesI know that it's lurking in the shadows of my t-cells.I wonder did this virus touch you too? & if so what willyou do?Did the meds make you sick? Did you take as many pills asI or was it 999x3?I wonder did you sleep well or were you in my same hell?
I still ...miss you even if you don't miss me.think of you even if you don't think of me.want you to be my friend even if you can't make love tome again.
I still ... I still ... I still ...
Back to Body Positive magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 2.

Fred First, "Slow road home"

2006-11-27T09:50:00.000-08:00

There're many books I don't like...Those novels full of events, characters, words and details, these complicated stories...Like some films you see on TV...
The more I read , the more I like these sentences written by Hemingway:
"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar- words. I know them allright. But there are older and simpler and better words and those are the ones I use."
Who am I to judge English speaking litterature? just a reader...The same applies to French litterature...I like simple words...they may be strong, made just for the sentence, invented, but they must not be "fussy" ,not made to be pretty, made to be beautiful, powerful...
A friend who speaks what I call a beautiful language , gave me this title:
"Slow road home: a blueridge book of days" by Fred First...
The website looks like the man, the house he lives in too...simple, deep...
Read it...
"Stranger in a Strange Land
I don't have a job to go to and I don't have a plan for what comes next. And yet, somehow, I am not as anxious about this as I would have thought I'd be.
But I do feel guilty--as if I had skipped school. I pull back behind the curtains when the few cars go by the house, lest their drivers, our neighbors, see that I'm not at work on a weekday. I tell myself to relax and enjoy being here while I can. This is not house arrest. It is not punishment. It is an odd kind of time apart from work that might become more like an unplanned vacation between jobs-a strange vacation, I'll grant you-just me here all day, every day. The place seems unfamiliar, like a bed-and-breakfast, somewhere I've spent many nights but not so many days. Maybe the next few weeks will be a sort of spiritual retreat, one novitiate and one big black dog in eighty acres of quiet sanctuary."
I feel the same now I retired...

it's getting cold, warm ourselves with poems!!!

2006-11-20T11:41:00.000-08:00

listen to these words coming from the 19th century...
Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherries
-Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries--
All ripe together
Come with me and meet Christina Rossetti our Edwardian sister...
"For there is no friend like a sister,
In calm or stormy weather,
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands."

Winter's coming...

2006-11-20T11:00:00.000-08:00

Winter wood

So I have put away the books
and I watch the last apples fall
from the frostry trees
and I have seen also
acorns streching red shoots
into the hard soil
and the white bark from the birches
was more to me than all the pages
and what I read there
bared my heart to the winter sun
and opened my brain to the wind
and suddenly
suddenly in the midst of that winter wood
I knew I had always been there
before the books
as after the books
there will be a winter wood
and my heart will be bare
and my brain open to the wind.

Kenneth White

Craft for a dry lake by Kim Mahood

2006-11-06T09:41:00.000-08:00

"As I travel through the country I discover that this is not my country, nor is it my father’s country. But my track, my story travels through it and so does his. They make up part of the pattern of the country. By coming back I reinvoke them. At all the points of intersection I feel the other journeys, ancestral, contemporary, historic, imaginary. They are all under my skin. "
Kim Mahood
The woman 's journey, meeting the little girl, the father, the arborigenal women, and the country, the huge desert outbacks...
The souls of ancestors, the old paths, the signs, the colours, the earth...
The questions of an artist on her work, and her inspirations...
The travel to the depths of the country, the depths of memory...
The ultimate discovery, I don't belong to it, It doesn't belong to me, we are together, inside one another...much less and much more than I expected...
The history of a country, the lack of water, the cattle, the "stations", the desert, the camp-fires, the life as hard as the ground...
She wanted her father, she finds herself...
She wanted the old country she knew, she discovers a new land, so different and so the same...
A book of stone, dust, flesh, bones, colours, silence and stories...
A woman is born, so similar, so different...
We have to accept to be what we are...
Read it, whether you live in a desert, a small european village or a huge city...read it this woman is your sister...

such a great woman

2006-11-02T10:51:00.000-08:00

It is imperative that a woman keep her sense of humor intact and at the ready. She must see, even if only in secret, that she is the funniest, looniest woman in her world, which she should also see as being the most absurd world of all times. It has been said that laughter is therapeutic and amiability lengthens the life span. Women should be tough, tender, laugh as much as possible, and live long lives. The struggle for equality continues unabated, and the woman warrior who is armed with wit and courage will be among the first to celebrate victory.
Maya Angelou

quotes of the week

2006-10-29T09:02:00.000-08:00

The light which experience gives, is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us. Coleridge

On Monday, when the sun is hot I wonder to myself a lot Now is it true, or is it not, That what is which And which is what? A.A. Hodge

She takes my hand and leads me along paths I would not have dared explored alone.
Maya V Patel

The creation of something new is not accomplishedby intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the object it loves.
Carl Jung

When sisters stand shoulder to shoulder, who stands a chance against us ? Pam Brown

"Love medicine" Louise Erdrich

2006-10-26T04:46:00.000-07:00

I read it directly in English...I'm so proud...If I've a problem sure I'll find a blog-sister to help me...(lol)a second-hand book...i love it...we may imagine the person who had it before...
Toni Morrison wrote: "The beauty of Love Medicine saves us from being completely devastated by its power..."
We discover two families, the Lamartines and the Kashpaws, who live on and around a North Dakota reservation...such beautiful women...and men...
"Although, he never did well in school, Lipsha knew surprising things. He read books about computers and volcanoes and the life cycles of salamanders. Sometimes he used words I had to ask him the meaning of, and other times he didn't make even the simplest sense. I loves him for being both ways..."
Moses..."he was his island, he was me, he was his cats, he didn't exist from the inside out but from the outside in. And so that winter, I stayed with him in the cave as the snow fell, as the wind piled snow over us, wrapped us, sealed us in frozen stones.
N'dawnis, n'dawnis, my mother still spoke to me, sang to me, keeping me in spite of him from deeper harm.
We slept curved in one shape, around the baby as it grew. We hardly talked except by signs. We had no need of words...."

soul sisters from everywhere I love you

2006-10-23T13:56:00.000-07:00

Soul Sister By Eileen Ramage © 1996

I hear your laughter through the air.
It speaks of passion and delight!
Your world is one I love to share.
With you I feel all right!

This special bond I have with you
Seems like since time began.
I feel you're one I always knew.
Let's make a future if we can.

Though the ocean wide keeps us apart
And you're not always on my mind,
There is forever within my heart
A special place you can find.

Last week quotes

2006-10-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

I endeavor to be wise when I cannot be merry, easy when I cannot be glad, content with what cannot be mended and patient when there is no redress. Elizabeth Montagu

Hope is a higher heart frequency, and as you begin to re-connect with your heart, hope is waiting to show you new possibilities and arrest the downward spiral of grief and loneliness. Listening to the still small voice in your heart will make hope into a reality. Sara Paddisonis

People who throw kisses are mighty hopelessly lazy. (!) ~Bob Hope

In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility. Eleanor Roosevelt

The ordinary acts we practise everyday at home, are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest. Thomas More

In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, for in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. Kalhil Gibran

"The solace of open spaces." Gretel Ehrlich 1984

2006-10-17T07:56:00.000-07:00

I really do love this type of book...you get to know a woman, a country, a life and so many details making life liveable for the writer and the reader...I read to learn...I eat the books, feed myself with any bit of life in it...I'm so greedy of new countries, new ways of life...and here I get everything I wish:
The Wyoming: "the name comes from an Indian word meaning"at the great plains" but the plains are really valleys, great arid valleys, sixteen hundred square miles, with the horizon bending up on all sides into mountain ranges. This gives the vastness a sheltering look"
it seems so "exotic" when you live in a tiny bit of france...
Then you get to know a woman, just recovering from the death of the man she loved...She then decided to stay in the country she was filming and to work there...Working on ranches day time, writing at night...working so hard...meeting such strong and extraordinary people hermits, cowboys, women...and discovering the wind, the winter, the changing seasons, the cattle....
"Walking is also an ambulation of mind" walking , working was also a way of healing...
I really recommend this book. It's great...
listen: "It's May and I'm just awakened from a nap, curled against sagebrush the way my dog taught me to sleep-sheltered from wind...."

last week quotes

2006-10-15T03:37:00.000-07:00

My memory isn't very good, so I'll keep the week quotes to avoid giving you the same ones...

Too often we under estimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment or tht smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
Anne Lindbergh
The only place where housework comes before needlework is in the dictionary.
Mary Kurtz
Laugh a lot and when you are older, all your wrinkles will be in the right place.
Unknown
The recipe for beauty is to have less illusion and more soul, to retreat from the belief of pain or pleasure in the body into the unchanging calm and glorious freedom of spiritual harmony.
Mary Baker Eddy
The man who has no imagination has no wings.
Muhammad Ali
If someone is tired to give you a smile, leave one of your own, because no one needs a smile as much as those who have none to give.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch
Congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant and broken the monotony of a decorous age.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

birth, is there anything more extraordinary?

2006-10-09T13:22:00.000-07:00

Birth Day

For Alexandra, born May 17, 1999

Armored in red, her voice commands every corner.
Bells gong on squares,in steeples, answering the prayers.
Bright tulips crown the boulevards.
Pulled from the womb she imitates
that mythic kick from some god's head.
She roars, and we are conquered.
Her legs, set free, combat the air.
Naked warrior: she is our own.
Entire empires are overthrown.

Elise Paschen

A Few Words On The Soul

2006-10-03T12:24:00.000-07:00

A Few Words On The Soul

We have a soul at times.

No one's got it non-stop,

for keeps.
Day after day,

year after year

may pass without it.
Sometimes it will settle for a while

only in childhood's fears and raptures.

Sometimes only in astonishment

that we are old.
It rarely lends a handin uphill tasks,

like moving furniture,

or lifting luggage,

or going miles in shoes that pinch.
It usually steps out

whenever meat needs chopping

or forms have to be filled.
For every thousand conversations

it participates in one,

if even that,

since it prefers silence.
Just when our body goes from ache to pain,

it slips off-duty.
It's picky:

it doesn't like seeing us in crowds,

our hustling for a dubious advantage

and creaky machinations make it sick.
Joy and sorrow

aren't two different feelings for it.

It attends us

only when the two are joined.
We can count on it

when we're sure of nothing

and curious about everything.
Among the material objects

it favors clocks with pendulums

and mirrors, which keep on working

even when no one is looking.
It won't say where it comes from

or when it's taking off again

,though it's clearly expecting such questions.
We need it

but apparentlyit needs us

for some reason too.

Wislawa Szymborska
(Translated from the Polish byStanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)

proud woman

2006-09-27T12:32:00.000-07:00

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?'
Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard'
Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I riseUp from a past that's rooted in pain
I riseI'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I riseInto a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I riseBringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I riseI riseI rise.
Maya Angelou

Csometimes, a message for you

2006-09-25T13:14:00.000-07:00

for Mary Barnes, go to "search this blog"
also visit "Mereabeille"

female poet

2006-09-24T12:53:00.000-07:00

A Little While
*************
A little while, a little while,
The weary task is put away,
And I can sing and I can smile,
Alike, while I have holiday.

Why wilt thou go, my harassed heart,
What thought, what scene invites thee now?
What spot, or near or far,
Has rest for thee, my weary brow?

There is a spot, mid barren hills,
Where winter howls, and driving rain;
But if the dreary tempest chills,
There is a light that warms again.

The house is old, the trees are bare,
Moonless above bends twilight's dome;
But what on earth is half so dear,
So longed for, as the hearth of home?

The mute bird sitting on the stone,
The dank moss dripping from the wall,
The thorn-trees gaunt, the walks o'ergrown,
I love them, how I love them all!

Still, as I mused, the naked room,
The alien firelight died away,
And from the midst of cheerless gloom
I passed to bright unclouded day.

A little and a lone green lane
That opened on a common wide;
A distant, dreamy, dim blue chain
Of mountains circling every side;

A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,
So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air;
And, deepening still the dream-like charm,
Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere.

That was the scene, I knew it well;
I knew the turfy pathway's sweep
That, winding o'er each billowy swell,
Marked out the tracks of wandering sheep.

Even as I stood with raptured eye,
Absorbed in bliss so deep and dear,
My hour of rest had fleeted by,
And back came labour, bondage, care.

- Emily Bronte

2006-09-19T02:24:00.000-07:00

Li Po Walks Lightly in His Garden
By Peter Bethanis

A long winter.
A bird outside a window.
The armies have passed
like insects over an orange peel.
The last stick of wood
used a month ago,
Li Po heats his tea,
refuses desire,
even a kiss
if it were offered.
Li Po knows the oneness of the universe,
at the center
a deep suffering,
so he drinks his tea,
detached as a laugh,
admires the bird
then walks lightly
in what’s left of his garden.

Peace poetry awards and contests 2003

female poem

2006-09-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

Those Who Do Not Dance (Gabriela Mistral )

A crippled child said,
“How shall I dance?”
Let your heart dance
We said.

Then the invalid said:
“How shall I sing?”
Let your heart sing
We said .

Then spoke the poor dead thistle,
But I, how shall I dance?”
Let your heart fly to the wind
We said.

Then God spoke from above
“How shall I descend from the blue?”
Come dance for us here in the light
We said.

All the valley is dancing
Together under the sun,
And the heart of him who joins us not
Is turned to dust, to dust.

Gabriela Mistral ,pen name of Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, was the first female Latin American poet to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. She received it in 1945 for: "for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world"

female poem

2006-09-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

Do not stand at my grave and weep
Mary Frye (1932)

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you wake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not die!

Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905-2004) was a housewife from Baltimore USA, when a visiting friend's mother died, and this prompted Mary Frye to compose the verse, which she said was her first real attempt to write poetry. She wrote the poem on a brown paper shopping bag. Apparently in interviews since writing the poem Frye said that the 'words just came to her', and it also seems clear that she wrote her poetry to bring comfort and pleasure to others, rather than to profit from its publication.

Mary Barnes, thanks to her.....

2006-09-09T07:47:00.001-07:00

I didn't write the following words...talking about this book so strong, so deep,would be too difficult for many reasons...so I borrowed Tony O'Brien's voice... Two accounts of a journey through madness Mary Barnes' autobiography is one of the frankest and most literal accounts of madness you are likely to read. From her description of her early family life to the sometimes tediously detailed description of her day to day experience of regression into psychosis, Barnes spares herself and the reader little. Interspersed with sections by her therapist, Joseph Berkes, and with new epilogues added since the publication of the 1971 edition, the book spans the entire period of Barnes' life until her death in 2001. Barnes' story is not simply an autobiography, but a first-person account (two if you include Berkes') of a tumultuous time in British psychiatry. The asylum era had faltered under the weight of internal critique, public distrust, and the seemingly limitless capacity of society to consign the mentally ill to institutions. New theories of mental illness, especially schizophrenia, were emerging. In particular, psychoanalytically oriented theorists were looking at the role of the family in schizophrenia. Thus Barnes' personal life history followed a path toward, and then away from the mainstream of British psychiatry. Barnes begins with the ironic comment: 'My family was abnormally nice'. From there she recalls a childhood under the austere gaze of her mother, and her struggle to live with the conflicts carried into her adult life. She recounts early experiences of her reaction to her mother's pregnancies, and her sense of rejection, displacement and rage. Trained as a nurse, and for a time employed teaching nursing, Barnes' life does not show the trajectory of adolescent role failure often considered to characterize schizophrenia. Her conversion to Catholicism showed a concern with questions of meaning that were later to assume almost mystical proportions. According to her account Barnes achieved considerable success professionally, but remained troubled by self doubt and at times delusional ideas about herself, her family, and her effects on the world around her. These led to hospital admissions and intervention with the standard treatments of the time, ECT and chlorpromazine. When she met R.D Laing her life changed, and it is here that the biography takes on and additional social and historical interest. In 1965 Barnes entered Kingsley Hall, a therapeutic community set up by antipsychiatrists Laing and Esterson. The mood was radical; the techniques primitive and untried. Laing considered psychosis to be a healing experience which, fully experienced would bring about its own resolution. Laing was the enfant terrible of British psychiatry in the 1960s. His somewhat precocious The Divided Self set out what he saw as the basis for an alternative scientific account of schizophrenia, that of schizophrenia as an indicator of pathological family interaction. Kingsley Hall was the crucible in which Laing's ideas would be tested. Barnes would become one of Laing's ambassadors; a voyager into the depths of psychosis, who would emerge to explain its mysteries to those who would listen. A lot of people listened. Kingsley Hall, during the time of Mary Barnes residency, became a magnet for radical thinkers in psychiatry. Visitors included Fritz Perls and Loren Mosher. As mainstream resistance to Laing's ideas became more entrenched, his critique took on an explicit political dimension through his identification with concerns of emancipation and liberation, rather than merely the alleviation of distress. According to Berkes' account, doctors working at Kingsley Hall were exhorted to drop their medical persona, and instead engage with their clients as one human being to another. There seems to be little that is problematic about such an attitude. Many doctors of the day, especially those who were psychoanalytically trained, would probably have agreed that the relationship between doctor and patient is the prime ingredient of psychiatric care. Michael Balint's 1957 The Doctor, his Patient and the Illness certainly took such ideas seriously in applying them to general medicine. However it is not entirely clear that Laing and others were prepared to abandon the status arising from their background as doctors. Their role as therapists appears in large part derived from their medical authority, augmented by a considerable dose of personal charisma. At one point in Berkes' therapy with Mary Barnes, Berkes lashed out in frustration at Barnes' childish demands, bloodying her nose. What is notable about his response is his consternation at finding himself thinking in terms of the ethical framework of medicine. He is later relieved that Barnes thanked him for the assault and said “she loved me more than ever”. As she emerged from the cocoon of psychosis Barnes' discovered a talent for art......

Two accounts of a journey through madness

2006-09-09T07:32:00.000-07:00

She became a productive and respected painter, not merely in the 'art of the insane' tradition, but in her own right, as an artist of the unconscious. The book contains several reproductions of her work, and they certainly have evocative power. One painting, 'The resurrection' seems clearly modelled on Munch's The Scream, but the embryo-like figure suggests the idea of rebirth which was a cornerstone of Laingian therapy. Roman Catholic iconography is strongly represented in her art, with the fingerpainted works on Peter, the Nativity, and The Blinding of Paul having a primal quality in both the colors and the interpretations of their themes.
Two Accounts of a Journey through Madness is at times a slow read. There is little evidence of professional editing, which may be a reflection of the Barnes' view that madness speaks directly, and should not be filtered through objective the frames of reference for the convenience of others. Whatever the reason for its publication in this form, the authentic voice of Barnes contributes in large measure to the book's appeal. While there are passages in which the tone of her writing is prosaic, there are others that show the poetic sensitivity that inspired her art. Her view of herself is that: 'Much of me was twisted and buried, and turned in on itself, like a tangled skein of wool, to which the end had been lost.' (p. 13).
Mary Barnes was never cured. Perhaps she was never ill. She lived a productive, fulfilled life, albeit one interrupted by her admissions to hospital and her sponsored descents into psychosis at Kingsley Hall. She contemplated death with equanimity. It is hard to imagine the events of her life being repeated. That is not to say that psychiatry has been reformed by the lessons of the antipsychiatrists. If anything, the ideological position of biological psychiatrists has been strengthened, rather than weakened over the past few decades. Psychiatry, especially State psychiatry, has redrawn its boundaries, and is now less concerned with dysfunctional families, and more with using narrow diagnostic criteria to limit access to services.
It is not at all clear that Laing's radicalism has made an enduring, independent contribution to psychiatry. His focus on understanding the experience distress is part of an interpersonal tradition that predates Kingsley Hall, reaching back to Tuke and other practitioners of moral therapy. Kingsley Hall folded in 1970, and so was never able to provide the sort of sustained programs of intervention that might have tested Laing's theories more fully In the years after Kingsley Hall Laing never recaptured the status he enjoyed as a counter culture figure.
A biography is a story of a life. While Barnes' book, especially the chapters by Berke, provides a critique of mainstream psychiatry, it is as biography that the book is most successful. From the intensely subjective descriptions of her childhood experiences, to the frank and at times naively honest recollections of her adulthood, Barnes' account is direct and compelling account of one woman's life.

© 2005 Tony O'Brien Tony O'Brien, M Phil., Lecturer, Mental Health Nursing, University of Auckland

Anjela, a woman from Brittany

2006-08-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

It's 3am in Plumpiemousie, but I can't sleep...I wanted to share with you the voices of a country I love: Brittany. But the problem was it was too difficult for me to translate poets...I found translations tonight. A beautiful work has been done by Lenora Timm.
I don't speak Breton, the mother language of people I love. I was not born in this country but I love it deeply, I always did. That's why I wanted to post the poem Rye both in English and Breton. Please, go to the site , the link is in the title, and read these texts...
I am very honoured of presenting you Anjela Duval...

Brittany's voices

2006-08-26T17:53:00.000-07:00

Anjela Duval (1905/1981)

a great woman
a great poet
a true woman from Brittany

Segal

Skeudenn Nevez-Amzer
Aet eo Meurzh ’tu-hont d’an hanter :
Avel skarin. Treut an amzer.
Ruz ar parkoù, al lannoù
Netra c’hlas er maezioù
Nag an danvez foenn, nag an danvez bara
Netra c’hlas, netra
Netra nemet ar segalegoù
Ar parkoù tort ouzh tor an dorgenn
Ar segal graet gantañ goap ouzh ar goañv
Ar segal dilezet, ar segal disprizet
— Gant ar juloded —
Ar segal trevad an douar paour
Trevad ar paour
Ar segal glas o c’hoarzhin
Ar segal seder o kanañ
’Vel ma kan ar paour
E baourentez.

Meurzh 1964

Anjela Duval

2006-08-26T17:43:00.000-07:00

Segal
RYE

Half spent the month of March.
A dry wind, the weather's tart.
The gorse is red, so is the heath.
Nothing green in the fields,
Neither hay stuff nor bread stuff.
Nothing green, nothing.
Nothing except the rye
In the humped fields against the hill's flank.
The rye mocks the winter,
Rye scorned, forgotten
By the well-begotten,
Rye, harvest of poor soils,
Harvest of poor souls
Green rye laughing,
Light-hearted rye singing,
As the poor sing
As the poor singIn poverty.

Anjela Duval

2006-08-26T17:39:00.000-07:00

Piv?
WHO?

I have always been faithful to my motto
--I DO BATTLE ON EVERY FRONT—
My life has been a battle.
And at the end of my time
At the end of my strength
I sigh!
Who will take my motto
After me?
Who will take my arms
When they have fallen from my hands
When I have not borne a son...?

Mary Barnes

2006-08-23T10:03:00.000-07:00

The hollow tree
There was once a tree in the forest who felt very sad and lonely for her trunk was hollow and her head was lost in mist. Sometimes, the mist seemed so thick that her head felt divided from her trunk. To the other trees she appeared quite strong but rather aloof, for no wind ever bent her branches to them. She felt if she bent she would break , yet she grew so tired of standing straight. So it was with relief that, in a mighty storm, she was thrown to the ground. The tree was split, her branches scattered, her roots torn up and her bark was charred and blackened.
She felt stunned, and though her head was clear of the mist she felt her sap dry as she felt her deadness revealed when the hollow of her trunk was open to the sky. The other trees looked down and gasped and didn't know whether to turn their branches politely away or whether to try to cover her emptiness and blackness with their green and brown. The tree moaned for her own life and feared to be suffocated by theirs. She felt she wanted to lay bare and open to the wind and the rain and the sun, and that, in time, she would grow again, full and brown from the ground. So it was, that, with the wetness of the rain, she put down new roots and by the warmth of the sun she stretched forth-new wood.
In the wind her branches bent to other trees and as their leaves rustled and whispered, in the dark and in the ligth, the tree felt loved and laughed with life.
Mary Barnes

Virginia Woolf

2006-08-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

Clarissa Pinkola Estés

2006-08-13T09:13:00.000-07:00

paper burns

word remains.

deep in our souls,

light never fails.

book-cover

2006-08-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

You've never seen the whole photoscan of my book cover...

Sisabeille made it with transfer on fabric...

Jorn Riel

2006-08-02T05:48:00.000-07:00

That's the picture I was looking for to illustrate "The song of life". I got it in Swedish Lapland. It was made by Britta Marakatt. She called it :"Samisk liv".

Jorn Riel's trilogies

2006-08-02T05:24:00.000-07:00

only three up to now!!!
The one I prefer is the Greenland saga "Sangen for livet" , "The song of life"...It tells the story of The Eskimo people ...
The first book "Heq" tells how native hunters from America reached Greenland a thousand years ago. Heq can survive because he can submit to the mythic forces of life and nature without losing himself and hear the song of wisdom and insight.
The second book "Arluck" takes place when Norsemen arrive...Arluck too ,must hear the song and cross the crevasse.
In the third book arrives Sore the woman returning to her native country..Sore who is going to sing the song very loudly to reconnect with life , her life, her mother's life, her people's life...A story-teller is born. May the people survive...
and may you cry and rejoice your heart filling up with the beautiness of the language, so strong, loving, hoping...it's impossible to tell the story...it has to be read...

tall tales/ Jorn Riel

2006-08-02T05:06:00.000-07:00

"Skroner"is the name for tall tales in Scandinavia: they are stories needing entertaining invention, exaggeration. They must be very powerful, make you laugh loudly or shiver terribly...Truth and morality are never important. The important thing in Riel's stories is the truth of the characters, what they think is true, beautiful or terrible. They are real people living invented stories because of the madness of the country...
Have you ever heard of somebody selling his tattoe ? of a rooster crowing three times before he dies? of a hunter hiding to knit?
The tall tales they all tell and live are due to their extreme loneliness...
The words are even a way of fighting and may be killing...There're always too much light or too much darkness, too much closeliness or two much loneliness. You're going to laugh, to cry, to be deeply moved and to fall deeply in love with these people...

Jorn Riel

2006-08-02T04:53:00.000-07:00

just a few photos to show you where the Count, Mads Madsen, Emma,Fjodur, Black William, Sivert, Bjorken, Sylte, Anton and others live...not forgetting the ship Little Mari...so far away, in full darkness or full day...
they need tales to live...

his name is Jorn Riel

2006-08-01T05:19:00.000-07:00

I was so impressed I forgot to tell you his name!!!
Now, what a sad surprise, no books translated in English up to now...
Everything in French, some in Spanish, German, Italian, Greek and the other Scandinavian languages that's all...What a pity!.Even so, i'll must tell you about him...I got some help from the web, translating is sometimes a bit tiring though I love it
"Jørn Riel was born in Odense in 1939. From 1949 to 1951 he studied at the Nautical College in Copenhagen, after which he was a member of the two-year Lauge Koch expedition to Eastern Greenland. Jørn Riel lived in Greenland for ten years and then resumed his travels. 1964-71 he was Field Officer for the UN, stationed in the Middle East and Pakistan, also travelling in, among other places, Africa, the West Indies and Arctic Canada. Jørn Riel published his first book in 1970, En fortælling hvoraf man får et smukt ansigt (A Story from which you get a Beautiful Face), the first volume of a trilogy of novels which was completed during 1970-72 with Vorherres rævefælde (The Lord´s Fox Trap) and Det første af altings fest (The Celebration of the Very First Thing). "
More to come later...

Jorn Riel post 1

2006-08-01T05:14:00.000-07:00

That man is very very handsome...yes you noticed...ah...life isn't perfect...he left Scandinavia and live somewhere in Malaysia with his family...and he speaks so good English...A pleasure to talk with him.
Now Oldwoman, come back on earth...First listen to him:
"We need stories - false stories or tall tales if necessary -in order to keep life and time and the community going, and to prevent the blood from congealing."
Would love to show you all the books I had...I had to sell them on a day I was broke...I miss them...they were dedicated...
Never mind, only the words are important, I'll buy them again...
Now I'll have to go on searching my old notes to tell you everything about that nice gentle man.

"Making a difference: Zen tale" from the web

2006-07-30T15:14:00.000-07:00

Ryokan was a Zen teacher of repute. One day a fisherman saw him walking on the beach soon after a storm. The storm had washed up thousands of starfish on the shore, and they were beginning to dry up. Soon all of them would be dead. Ryokan was picking up starfish and throwing them into the sea.The fisherman caught up with the teacher and said, "Surely, you cannot hope to throw all these starfish back into the sea? They will die in their thousands here. I’ve seen it happen before. Your effort will make no difference.""It will to this one," said Ryokan, throwing back another starfish into the sea.

thank you Cate, for this beautiful quote...

2006-07-30T02:55:00.000-07:00

too much "computer talking", let rest...

2006-07-28T04:42:00.000-07:00

"At first, there was absolute silence.
And at least, there was absolute silence.
In between, it's a(n)Emotional silence, that'd kill with bare hands
Attentive silence, absorbed in the environment
Thoughtful silence, wallowing and preparing
Embezzled silence, bored in self indulgence
Quiet silence, uncomfortable and unwanted
Subdued silence, waiting in the wings
Meditative silence, which can move heaven and earth
Dogmatic silence, enough said about it
Comforting silence, no words could describe it
In this communicative silence,
Someone,
Say something
Or, not".

Venkata Majeti

Annie Dillard

2006-07-28T04:13:00.000-07:00

One day I visited my favorite bookshop. The man asked me :"do you know Annie Dillard? No! Take this , you MUST read it..."
It was "Pilgrim at Tinker creek". I missed the bus stop that day, came home very late but so happy...I know if I say it was the beginning aof another love story you'll laugh...but nevermind...it's a love story...between a writer and a reader living in such different countries, having the same age...
Funny enough, last night I was rereading An American chidhood...So many differences between Annie D. life and mine...She was a little girl living in Pittsburgh, I was a litle girl living in a tiny French village...We had the same dreams, the same plays but I had no phone, no washing machine, and some of my school mates had no electricity at home...It's not the difference between France and America but between town and country villages in the 1950's.
I won't talk about "Pilgrim at Tinker creek" today, I need time nand concentration...but it's great, really great...

Hortense Dufour, "Le bouchot", I beg your pardon for the approximate translation...

2006-07-26T06:28:00.000-07:00

I know she's best know for her novel turned into a film by Robert Enrico: "The imprint of giants"...I didn't see it...To my mind her best book is called "Le bouchot, The mussel bank". In this part of France mussels grow on these big pieces of wood planted in the sand, and covered by the sea part of the day..."Le bouchot" is also the name given to the family house, unfinished, slowly drowning in sand. There lives Teresa...
"With holes in my shoes, big blue apron to hide my old dress, playing the cello at midnight, dawn , whenever I like...and tarots when good housewives have dinner...with children painting and writing...that would not please the husbands for sure...Freedom pleases nobody around here..being truly free is looking like a scarecrow...
But never forget Ocean, I want you to be a writer not a schoolmistress."
Much later Teresa 's hands were so stiff and spoiled by finishing to build the house, she could no longer play the cello...
"No need to worry love, if I had not once played the cello I wouldn't have the idea of grafting honeysuckle onto a fig tree...Writing books and grafting flowers onto trees, that's the most important thing..."