“…talking to you, God. Is that all right? With the passing of people, I feel a growing need to speak to You alone. I love people terribly, because in every human being I love something of You. And I seek You everywhere in them and often do find something of You. But now I need so much patience, patience and thought, and things will be very difficult. …”
~Trans: Arno Pomerans Hillesum, E. An Interrupted Life p. 16
Image and quote submitted in response to Travel with Intent’s Six Word Challenge.
A repeating dream born of a yearning for solace. No, not really a dream. More a nightmare of a different sort where the sudden appearance of a dial phone transforms me into a relentless pursuer. A series of events, where I stumble over one into another, the phone line is silent; “this number is no longer in service;” I can’t recall the number as I dial; a nearby phone book opens up to blank pages; I have no coins; my mind goes blank when I pick up the receiver. Failure becomes an enemy which I fight, again and again, until waking releases me.
Are these incessant-themed dreams a telling of memories when the house settled into night? Those moments of private passage where thoughts and images become ethereal and reality is colored by deep silence and blinding darkness? And then…unexpectedly consciousness responds to a gentle, “ring ring” with, “hello.” Uninterrupted exchanges between sisters, separated by darkness—confiding, sharing, questioning—creating our night time stories and lulling us into sleep?
Within a family of deafness, it was you—the eldest—who heard my night cries…my first spoken words. And in exchange, it was I who acknowledged you as I heard your voice especially within the stilled silence of night.
Are these dreams an attempt to reconnect with childhood moments of friendship, of sisterhood, of validation? Or, an obsessive voice calling for another in the darkness of despair? A child’s soul—voiceless—hidden within the darkness of absolute silence decrying the definite disconnection by death?
Within this day of remembrance, I wish to know that my prayers pierced death’s barrier and you hear my deep gratitude for the solace you nourished within our childhood as well as my hope that these foundations of our sisterhood that have intertwined within the passage of time will awaken to a renewed togetherness.
you left,
I remained…
two springs.
From this day forward, I will be…
may we find peace.
“There was a single likeness, a small sketch that he kept inside a gold locket, …the locket disappeared to the rag-and-bone man. I do not know where the likeness went. It slipped through the cracks of time and went to where the lost things are.”
~K Morton, The Clockmaker’s Daughter, p. 65
“There was no such thing as the right time, he explained. Time was an idea, it had no end and no beginning, it could not be seen or heard or smelled. It could be measured, sure enough, but no words had been found to explain precisely what it was.”
~K Morton, The Clockmaker’s Daughter, p. 66
Week 13: Story Telling: New Beginnings (Our world is full of circular patterns; as some things end, others begin. Tell us a story of a New Beginning.)
Image submitted in response to Dogwood Photography’s annual 52-week photography challenge.
As evening arrives, sorrow visits.
Your phantom, yearned for throughout the day
never appeared.
Left behind
to grow old in this world
without you,
the flowers I pick lose their beauty,
dyed with dark ink.
~Izumi Shikibu (J Hirshfield & M Aratani, The Ink Dark Moon)
painting the moon
Nikon D750 f/3.2 1/1.250s 40mm
For the month of February Lost in Translation’s challenge is to match one or more images with five words: innate, protuberant, rectangular, interspersed, and fluorescent. Four of the five words are illustrated within these goat’s beard images while two of the three are rectangular.
Nighttime in the forest is not like nighttime in the city or on a farm. At night, the sacred forest declares its absolute authority. The curtain of darkness is thick and secretive. …I heard many eerie cries coming from the forest. By eight o’clock it was already night, and the forest’s dominance was restored. The whole universe sank into a profound silence that, at the same time, vibrated with life. I could almost hear the majestic steps of the mountain god as he leaped between the towering trees.
On full moon nights, none of us could sleep. One time, I was up late writing… When the moon and forest were together they created a profoundly marvelous and mysterious atmosphere, unlike any we had experienced before. The silence was total, yet, we could hear moon and forest speaking to each other. They were no longer two, but had become one. If you took away the moon, the forest would cease to be. If you took away the forest, the moon would not be. We wouldn’t be standing by the moonlit window if moon and forest ceased to be.
~Thich Nhat Hanh (Fragrant Palm Leaves, pg. 22)
a meditative journey 
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