Please send me your last pair of shoes, worn out with dancing as you mentioned in your letter, so that I might have something to press against my heart. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

***********************************************************************************

There are short-cuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them.  ~Vicki Baum

Dancing is the poetry of the foot.  ~John Dryden

Dance is the hidden language of the soul.  ~Martha Graham

Talk about dance?  Dance is not something to talk about.  Dance is to dance.  ~Peter Saint James

Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking.  ~John Wain

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds.  A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.  ~William James

We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.  ~Japanese Proverb

I see dance being used as communication between body and soul, to express what it too deep to find for words.  ~Ruth St. Denis

The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music.  Bodies never lie.  ~Agnes de Mille

Dance is a delicate balance between perfection and beauty.  ~Author Unknown

Quote for January.

“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

I am better with songs (You Tube!) and Pictures (vi.sualize.com!), poems, well, no, I am an avid reader, but I read mostly prose, and as for “speaking a few reasonable words” – maybe? Just maybe, I am there…”Hi, how are you?”  does it seem reasonable enough?  Then let’s say I am on track.

Writing comes alive

Source: http://vi.sualize.us/view/kallini2002/e1d44128a6ea9bd8f85354cfbe7bc979/

Let’s fix some of my shortcomings, LOL.

Poems from the calendar:

January: (the page has gone missing)

February (Theme: Symbols of Love):

Love wants love

Sweet kisses and

Smiling hearts

An ocean of chocolate

A paradise of togetherness

March (Theme: New Thinking):

Fashion meaning

From black and white symbols

Smears of grace

Chiseled into balance

April (Theme: April Fools):

Ferocious caramel universe

You speak like a candy animal

In your corduroy yesterday

Flying through clouds of baby growls

May (Theme: Garden of Possibility):

A moment of delirious skin

Showing up in the garden

Delicate essential languid

Shine for me

June (Theme: A Muse of Fire):

Fortune seek no friend or villain

And forswears naught

Bestowing melancholy and grace

Like a maiden drunk with love

July (Theme: Bottle Rockets):

Summer produces a thousand dreams

Of lazy sleep

And rusting feet

And purple fingers full of delirious juice

I will live for these delicate moments

August (Theme: Beach Ball Game Theory of Relativity):

The fat cats hat

Grows slowly

In the clean green ground

September (Theme: Your Song):

Short story or poetry

What plot illustrates my world

A strange in the library

Creates a novel of me

October (Theme: Shadow History):

Delicate whisper of a garden

Incubate a thousands dreams

A shadow of spring in the fall

November (Theme: Food for Thought):

The memory of a chicken

And a pickle as sour as lime

Make me think of people

And our tremendous emotions

December (Theme: Everyday Celebrations):

Remember the rhythm of the ocean

The animal breathing

Of a delicious universe

Source:

http://images.google.com.sg/imglanding?q=dear%20diary

Dear Diary,

I cannot write (if only write!), I want to break out of this vicious circle.

I found a consolation for the moment in a serious of beautiful pictures, some of them I am sharing on this web-site and I will continue quoting people who make me feel alive.

Quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.”

“I love those who yearn for the impossible.”

“Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.”

“If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.”

“We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.”

“You don’t have to travel around the world to understand that the sky is blue everywhere.”

“Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine.”

“There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.”

“Nothing is more revolting than the majority; for it consists of few vigorous predecessors, of knaves who accommodate themselves, of weak people who assimilate themselves, and the mass that toddles after them without knowing in the least what it wants.”

“Our senses don’t deceive us: our judgment does.”

– Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Source: http://www.jettobox.com/

Pontificating

Remembering is another form of suffering.  Remembering that success is a journey, not a destination, what shall I have in mind?  The past, the present, or the future?  Keep your eyes on the goals.  There have not been set yet.  That is the worst part – I don’t know what exactly I want, but I do continue my journey because I am still alive.  Or maybe I am still alive because I do continue my journey and my journey is my success.  I don’t feel successful.  I should imagine being successful.  What do I do in the meantime, yes, between pretending being successful and figuring out what success actually means for me?

I keep reading self-help books.  Most people say that I read all the wrong books, but let them say whatever they want.  This new book that I picked and put a lot of hope into is “Awaken the Giant Within” by Anthony Robbins.  I will be journaling my experiences from now on, because I have a feeling that there are some positive changes in my life.  A lot of setbacks, too, but…   But we shall judge life by the results, or not judge, or maybe judge, but not by results…  Let the journey continue…

“Deep within man dwell those slumbering powers; powers that would astonish him, that he never dreamed of possessing; forces that would revolutionize his life if aroused and put into action.”  (Orison Swett Marden)

 

“A consistent man believes in destiny, a capricious man in chance.”  (Benjamin Disraeli)

 

 

“Man is born to live and not to prepare to live.”  (Boris Pasternak)

 

 

“Man is not the creature of circumstances; circumstances are the creatures of men.”  (Benjamin Disraeli)

 

 

“Nothing can resist the human will that will stake even its existence on its stated purpose.”  (Benjamin Disraeli)

 

 

“Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth – that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too.”  (Johann Wolfgang Goethe)

 

 

“I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.”  (Henry David Thoreau)

Source: http://miroslodki.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/steps.jpg

“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”  Confucius (China’s most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist, 551-479 BC)

“Four steps to achievement: Plan purposefully. Prepare prayerfully. Proceed positively. Pursue persistently.”  William Arthur Ward (American dedicated scholar, author, editor, pastor and teacher)

“The heights charm us, but the steps do not; with the mountain in our view we love to walk the plains.”  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Playwright, Poet, Novelist and Dramatist. 1749-1832)

“The simplification of life is one of the steps to inner peace. A persistent simplification will create an inner and outer well-being that places harmony in one’s life.”  Peace Pilgrim  (American Teacher and Spiritual leader and Peace Prophet, 1908-1981)

“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.”  Ayn Rand (Russian born American Writer and Novelist, 1905-1982)

Love Quotes inspired by my Love (Infatuation) for “Mein Lieber A.”

Just to give you some hints why some quotes seem to be more relevant than others.

“I am beautiful.”  Charming, yes…

“Why do you want to be infatuated with me?”  It  was not exactly my choice.

“I love Goethe quotes.”  Well, so do I.  It is nice to have something in common.

“Do you need my permission to laugh?”  1. Yes; 2. No; 3. Maybe; 4. Does it really matter? 5. All of the above.

Do I love you because you’re beautiful,
Or are you beautiful because I love you?
~Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Cinderella

 

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.  ~Eric Fromm

 

Love has no desire but to fulfill itself.  To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.  To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.  ~Kahlil Gibran

 

When love is not madness, it is not love.  ~Pedro Calderon de la Barca

 

Love is a symbol of eternity.  It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end.  ~Author Unknown

 

The art of love… is largely the art of persistence.  ~Albert Ellis

 

If I love you, what business is it of yours?  ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

No one can understand love who has not experienced infatuation.  And no one can understand infatuation, no matter how many times he has experienced it.  ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

 

Sometimes it’s a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.  ~David Byrne

 

The excesses of love soon pass, but its insufficiencies torment us forever.  ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

My Next Calling

My next calling was discovered by my darling – “Mein Lieber A.”, Mr. “And your point being?”, “Mi Amore”, Mr. “I never promised you anything”, Mr. “I am Beautiful”, Mr. Denial (well, I am being creative with nicknames!)

I do have a soft spot for him, obviously.  He doesn’t reciprocate, but that is fine, it is to be expected.

He does not have such a good memory and my ability to pay attention and remember some of his words is the source of irritation for him.  Once he gave me permission to kick him out of his complacent condition, yet when I did, he did not like it all that much.  That is to be expected, too.

Quoting:

“If you wish to devote all your energy to keeping tabs on me on what I say then you may have found your next calling.”

I wish I had such sharp memory to remember everything he said, but I don’t.  But some things just stay, what can I do?

Certain sentences are repeated so many times, they become fixtures, motifs, cornerstones, whatever name you want to use.  “I never promised you anything” and “And your point being is?” are just a few of them.

Some sentences are just worth remembering.

“I never once refused not to help you.”

 

“I am beautiful.”

 

“I […] enter this forest at its darkest point; for it is at the darkest moment we see the light.”

How about that?

The best thing about him is not my infatuation, however sweet, intoxicating, euphoric and painful it might be, but the fact that he inspires me in a sense.  Is it he I like or my own reflection in him; for we can only see ourselves reflected in others?

Maybe I am not Light enough (my name literally means “Light”) for him to see, or maybe he is not in that dark forest anymore.  Maybe he never was there.  Of course, I am joking.  Most people (he is not an exception) take things way too seriously.

So my next calling is not to remember him and his every word, but to discover that Light within me that will bring me happiness and harmony.  Whether I can light anybody else’s life or not, we will see.  Discovering that Light would be my Success.  Yes, that one that is usually defined (limited!) by perseverance.

Talking about names!

“There’s a scientific hypothesis that every person’s name is a primary suggestive command that contains the entire script of their life in highly concentrated form. . . . According to this point of view, there is only a limited number of names, because society only needs a limited number of human types. Just a few models of worker and warrior ants, if I could put it like that. And everybody’s psyche is preprogrammed at a basic level by the associative semantic fields that their first name and surname activate.”
— Victor Pelevin (The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

If that is right, I must be Light.  The question is what Light is and what to do with it.

Quotes on the subject.

1. Love is not consolation.  It is light.  ~Friedrich Nietzsche

 

2. Someday perhaps the inner light will shine forth from us, and then we’ll need no other light.  ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

3. Light gives of itself freely, filling all available space.  It does not seek anything in return; it asks not whether you are friend or foe.  It gives of itself and is not thereby diminished.  ~Michael Strassfeld

 

4. We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light.  ~Mary Dunbar

 

5. Light, when suddenly let in, dazzles and hurts and almost blinds us: but this soon passes away, and it seems to become the only element we can exist in.  ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827

 

6. Light can be gentle, dangerous, dreamlike, bare, living, dead, misty, clear, hot, dark, violet, springlike, falling, straight, sensual, limited, poisonous, calm and soft.  ~Sven Nykvist

 

7. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come.  At the darkest moment comes the light.  ~Joseph Campbell

 

8. Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.  ~Kahlil Gibran

 

9. Your life is something opaque, not transparent, as long as you look at it in an ordinary human way.  But if you hold it up against the light of God’s goodness, it shines and turns transparent, radiant and bright.  And then you ask yourself in amazement:  Is this really my own life I see before me?  ~Albert Schweitzer

 

10. An age is called “dark,” not because the light fails to shine but because people refuse to see it.  ~James Michener

Coming back to

“I never once refused not to help you.”  He did help me.  By making me amorous, by irritating me, by making me think, by inspiring me.

“Why do you want to be infatuated with me?”  It was not my choice, mi amore, but it felt good, why is it so difficult to understand?  But he does not have to understand; searching for the Light and Meanings is my journey.

So there I go, full of Love in my heart and Hope and Light………………………………..

I decided, at least for a while, to follow Goethe’s advice.

Quote of the month.

“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Making a list:

Ö        A Little Song

Ö        A Poem

Ö        A Picture

Ö        A Few Reasonable Words

I love songs and I will start with Batuka“Dame Fuego”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6kHDBqpVCA

A little analysis.

A song with lyrics already contains a poem, because that is what lyrics are.  Lyrics contain a few reasonable words, or so I hope.  This particular song is in Spanish, that I don’t speak, but I have an online translator.  Translations more often than not are lame or sound quite lame.  But I am trying to extract the reason or meaning, or at least remember a few Spanish words.

A word for today.

“Dame fuego, dame el fuego de tu Corazon”

(Give me fire give me the fire of your heart)

One thing is missing – a Picture.  Or is it?  The video clip is a picture, so homework is done.

Don’t ask me, if I am nuts.  Because the answer is… I will give you multiple choice

1. Yes
2. No
3. Maybe
4. Does it matter?
5. All of the above.

I wanted to make a different post on Halloween.  A poem by Edgar Allan Poe.  “The Raven”.  I thought it would be more becoming.  More becoming my mood and the spirit of Halloween.

My plans have changed.  They usually do.  Something happened and it was somewhat pleasant, somewhat strange and more becoming my melancholic mood and longing for love.

“Gefunden.”  Some things are just strange.  The only thing that I remember from years of learning German was (is) a poem by Goethe.  “Gefunden” means “Found”.  It is about a flower the author finds in a forest while walking there without a thought in mind.  Instead of picking it and letting the flower die, the author digs it out with all the roots and replants it in his garden. 

Und pflanzt es wieder

Am stillen Ort;

Nun zweigt es immer

Und blüht so fort.

The reason the poem has surfaced again was that I met “a friend of a delicate nature” who claimed that he could read German.  His claim turned out to be somewhat exaggerated, since he could not read nor translate “Gefunden” with the online translator.  But that is quite understandable and, to be honest, is precisely what I assumed at the beginning.  Reading a language without properly learning it seems a tall order.  But this story is not about him.  Well, not entirely.

The poem keeps coming back to me.  And this time I found out that Goethe wrote this poem not about a flower, but about his love for a real woman.

I have a dream.  I want to find my love and I found a flower.  Literally.  Where and when?  I was working and walking in circles in the department store full of misplaced clothes.  Of all days, it was Halloween, my birthday.  I did not expect to find anything.  Yet I did.  I found a red rose, slightly battered, slightly faded, smelling of perfume, still beautiful…

I picked it gently and took it home, treating this red rose as a gift, as a sign, as a new hope.

Some things do come out of the Blue.

And my friend with his beautiful deep eyes, seductive voice and a reminiscence of a true love is only a vision of my longing for something or someone whom I will find.

One day.  Out of the Blue.  On the Halloween?

Source:

http://9221.portfolio.artlimited.net/image/en/162653

После того как я долго и упорно учила немецкий язык, осталось в моей голове не очень много.  Одно стихотворение Гёте – «Цветок».  Наверное, нужно было учить больше стихотворений, чтобы была возможность возвращаться к ним вновь и вновь.  Ну, что ж, пусть будет только одно.