“The enemy is fear. We think it is hate but is fear.” -Gandhi

He ate and drank the precious words,

His spirit grew robust,

He knew no more that he was poor,

Nor that his frame was dust.

He danced along the dingy days,

And this bequest of wings

Was but a book. What liberty

A loosened spirit brings!

Dickinson, E. (1993). The Collected Works of Emily Dickinson.  New York: Chatham River Press.

Contemplate:

BEWILDERMENT / Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

 

There are many guises for intelligence.

one part of you is gliding in a high

windstream,

while your more ordinary notions

take little steps and peck at the

ground.

 

Conventional knowledge is death to

our souls,

and it is not really ours.

 

It is laid on.  Yet we keep saying

that we find “rest” in these “beliefs.”

 

We must become ignorant of what we

have been taught

and instead be bewildered.

 

Run from what is profitable

and comfortable.

 

If you drink those liqueurs,

you will spill the springwater of your

real life.

 

Distrust anyone who praises you.

Give your investments money, and the interest

on the capital, to those who are

actually destitute.

 

Forget safety.  Live where you fear

to live.

Destroy your reputation.

Be notorious.

 

I have tired prudent planning

long enough.

From now on, I'll be mad.

(translated by Coleman Barks) in Cosmo DooGood's Urban Almanac 2006, p. 168.

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.  

Joseph Campbell

Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Quem teve a idéia de cortar o tempo em fatias,

A que se deu o nome de ano, foi um indivíduo genial.

Industrializou a esperança, fazendo-a funcionar no limite da exaustão.

Doze meses dão para qualquer ser humano se cansar e entregar os pontos.

Aí entra o milagre da renovação e tudo começa outra vez, com outro número e outra vontade de acreditar, que daqui para diante vai ser diferente.

Who ever had the idea to cut time into slices

Was the one who gave the year a name, and was a brilliant individual.

They industrialized hope, making it function to the limit of exhaustion.

Twelve months gives any human being time to be tired and to give up.

There the miracle of renewal entered and everything started again, with another number and another will to believe, that from here forward things will be different.

En épocas remotas, hubo una vez un país donde en una ocasión se encontró que la cosecha obtenida ese año producía un efecto nefasto: aquellos que la comían, perdían la razón.

 “No nos queda más remedio que comer del grano para sobrevivir,” dijo el rey, “pero entre nosotros deberán haber quienes no olviden que hemos perdido la razón.”

 -         Anónimo.

In ancient times there was a harvest that came in and was found to be poisonous. Those who ate of it, went insane.

 “We must eat the grain to survive,” said the King, “But there must be those among us who remember that we have all gone insane.”

-         Anonomous

Em tempos antigos, a época da colheita chegou e descobriu-se que a mesma encontrava-se envenenada, pois todos aqueles que dela comiam, ficavam loucos.

 “Nós devemos comer as sementes dos cereais para que possamos sobreviver”, disse o Rei.  “Porém, deverá haver aqueles entre nós que se lembrarão que todos nós nos tornamos loucos”.

Anônimo

Ere time journeys on
And years pass by
Come listen to the song
I would sing.
Incline your heart and
Lend your ears
To the message of love
That I bring.

When flowers can bloom
Without sunshine
When night time no more
Follows day
When rivers can flow
Without channels
To guide us along the rough way.

When God gives us Spring
Without sunshine –
And flowers cease to wane with the dew.
When this world can live without loves tender blossoms
Then I can live without you.

A love such as mine
Were laid in the heart
Of a rose that is faded and bare
Though summer were
Gone and flowers were dead
A new rose would
Blossom there.

I Found My Sources

I found my sources
In old archives
   Books
I found them
In accursed objects
Posts and chains
I found my sources
In the East
On the sea in filthy slave ships
I found them
In sweet words
    Songs
In furious drums
    Rituals
I found my sources
In the color of my skin
In the wounds of my soul
    In me
In my dark people
In my proud heroes
I found them and at last found myself.

(1999). Baedeker's Brazil, 2nd Edition. World Travel Guides: London. (p. 69)

Encontrei Minhas Origens

Encontrei minhas origens

Em velhos arquivos

    Livros

Encontrei

Em malditos objetos

Troncos e grilhetas

Encontrei minhas origens

No leste

No mar em imundos tumbeiros

Encontrei

Em doces palavras

    Cantos

Em furiosos tambores

    Ritos

Encontrei minhas origens

Na cor de minha pele

Nos lanhos de minha alma

    Em mim

Em minha gente escura

Em meus heróis altivos

Encontrei

Encontrei-as enfim

Me encontrei

Oliveira Silveira - Roteiro dos Tantãs

Entrevista: Oliveira Silveira

A new civilization is emerging in our lives, and blind men everywhere are trying to suppress it. This new civilization brings with it new family styles; changing ways of working, loving, and living; a new economy; new political conflicts; and beyond all this an altered consciousness as well. Pieces of this new civilization exist today. Millions are already attuning their lives to the rhythms of tomorrow. Others, terrified of the future, are engaged in a desperate, futile flight into the past and are trying to restore the dying world that gave them birth . . . . The dawn of this civilization is the single most explosive fact of our lifetimes. 
 

 "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world"

- J.R.R. Tolkien

 "Se muitos de nós valorizassem o alimento, a diversão e a canção além do ouro acumulado, o mundo seria mais alegre"

- J.R.R. Tolkien

When I Heard at the Close of the Day

By Walt Whitman

1819-1892

---

When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv'd
with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for
me that follow'd,
And else when I carous'd, or when my plans were accomplish'd, still
I was not happy,
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health,
refresh'd, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the
morning light,
When I wander'd alone over the beach, and undressing bathed,
laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way
coming, O then I was happy,
O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food
nourish'd me more, and the beautiful day pass'd well,
And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening came
my friend,
And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly
continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me
whispering to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in
the cool night,
In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast--and that night I was happy.

 

Courtesy of  http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1926.html

All those histories of this country centered on the Founding Fathers and the Presidents weigh oppressively on the capacity of the ordinary citizen to act. They suggest that in times of crisis, we look to someone to save us…  And that between occasional crises everything is all right, and it is sufficient for us to be restored to that normal state. They teach us that the supreme act of citizenship is to choose among saviors, by going into a voting booth every four years to choose between two white and well-off Anglo-Saxon males of inoffensive personality and orthodox opinions. The idea of saviors has been built into the entire culture, beyond politics. We have learned to look to stars, leaders, experts in every field, thus surrendering our own strength, demeaning our own ability, obliterating our own selves. But from time to time, Americans reject that idea and rebel. These rebellions, so far, have been contained. The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent, and labor power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority. It is a country so powerful, so big, so pleasing to so many of its citizens that it can afford to give freedom of dissent to the small number who are not pleased. There is no system of control with more openings, apertures, leeways, flexibilities, and rewards, for the chosen, winning tickets in lotteries. There is none that disperses its controls more complexly through the voting system, the work situation, the church, the family, the school, the mass media -- none more successful in mollifying opposition with reforms, isolating people from one another, creating patriotic loyalty.

A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house that I lived in, or the kind of car I drove… but the world may be a different place because I was important in the life of a student.

-          Anon.                                                           

Thompson, C.L. & Rudolph, L.B. (4^th Edition) Counseling Children.  Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I have no name,
I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.
I have no shelter;
I am as the wandering waters.
I have no sanctuary, like the dark gods;
Nor am I in the shadow of deep temples.
I have no sacred books;
Nor am I well-seasoned in tradition.
I am not in the incense
Mounting on the high altars,
Nor in the pomp of ceremonies.
I am neither in the graven image,
Nor in the rich chant of a melodious voice.
I am not bound by theories,
Nor corrupted by beliefs.
I am not held in the bondage of religions,
Nor in the pious agony of their priests.
I am not entrapped by philosophies,
Nor held in the power of their sects.
I am neither low nor high,
I am the worshipper and the worshipped.
I am free.
My song is the song of the river
Calling for the open seas,
Wandering, wandering,
I am Life.
I have no name,
I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.