A Living Death

But if you judge safety to be the paramount consideration in life you should never, under any circumstances, go on long hikes alone. Don’t take short hikes alone, either — or, for that matter, go anywhere alone. And avoid at all costs such foolhardy activities as driving, falling in love, or inhaling air that is almost certainly riddled with deadly germs. Wear wool next to the skin. Insure every good and chattel you possess against every conceivable contingency the future might bring, even if the premiums half-cripple the present. Never cross an intersection against a red light, even when you can see all roads are clear for miles. And never, of course, explore the guts of an idea that seems as if it might threaten one of your more cherished beliefs. In your wisdom you will probably live to be a ripe old age. But you may discover, just before you die, that you have been dead for a long, long time.

COLIN FLETCHER  The Complete Walker

The Journey As A Psychological Quest

One of my favourite travel books is Goethe's Italian Journey . . .

Some journeys — Goethe's was one — really are quests. Italian Journey is not only a description of places, persons and things, but also a psychological document of the first importance. 

WH AUDEN

Some quotes from the book itself . . . 

My purpose in making this wonderful journey is not to delude myself, but to discover myself in the objects I see.

Wherever I walk, I come upon familiar objects in an unfamiliar world; everything is just as I imagined it, yet everything is new. It is the same with my observations and ideas. I have not had a single idea which was entirely new or surprising, but my old ideas have become so much more firm, vital, coherent that they could be called new. 

Naples.

Naples is a paradise; everyone lives in a state of intoxicated self-forgetfulness, myself included. I seem to be a completely different person whom I hardly recognise. Yesterday I thought to myself: either you were mad before, or you are mad now.

Naples.

When I indulge in self-reflection, as I like to do occasionally, I discover in myself a feeling which gives me great joy. Let me put it like this. In this place, whoever looks seriously about him and has eyes to see is bound to become a stronger character . . .  At least I can say that I have never been so sensitive to the things of this world as I am here. The blessed consequences will, I believe, affect my whole future life.

Nothing, above all, is comparable to the new life that a reflective person experiences when he observes a new country. Though I am still always myself, I believe I have been changed to the very marrow of my bones.

GOETHE

Rare Fruits And Solitaires

For more than forty years I've been making notes and collecting quotes, picking gems from the word-hoard and plucking rare fruits from the bountiful cornucopia of literature. I'd love to share some of these with you; so, from now on, I'll be renewing on a weekly basis the quotations which appear just below my blog header. I hope you enjoy these ever-changing solitaires.

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Blundering Like Don Quixote

One of my compulsions is to 'collect' quotations. I'd like to share a few which have struck me over recent months . . .

I could not simplify myself.

IVAN TURGENEV From Nezhdanov’s suicide note in Virgin Soil

We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.

HENRY JAMES From The Middle Years

The deeper the feeling, the greater the pain.

LEONARDO DA VINCI

How many times now

have I crossed over hill crests


with the image


of blossoms leading me on —


toward nothing but white clouds?

FUJIWARA NO SHUNZEI (1114-1204)

The Lord walks among the pots and pans.

ST TERESA OF AVILA

At this stage in my life, I think it's all about the soft stuff. I don't give a damn about what you know or what you do if you can't be kind. I want the art of you before I'll tangle with the science of you. Talk to me so that I might know who you are. Be naked in the vocabulary of kindness.

SANDY CARLSON

Everbody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

A writer is not so much someone who has something to say 

as . . . someone who has found a process that will bring about new 

things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say 

them.

My morning writing would begin for me by getting up about four 

o'clock . . . I lie down on the living room couch in front of a 

big picture window which looks out on our quiet neighbourhood. 

The giant fir trees, . . . rhododendrons and so on outside. I'm lying 

there relaxed, I have a blank sheet in front of me. I put the date on 

top, and I start letting whatever swims into my attention get 

written down on the page . . . I welcome anything that comes along.  

I don't have any standards . . . I am not trying to contend for a 

place in magazines or in books. I'm just letting my attention flow 

where it wants to flow. And the relaxation of it is part of the charm 

for me.

. . . if you're lost enough, then the experience of now is your guide 

to what comes next. None of us knows what comes the next second.

Let me plead, not for ignoring advice from wherever it comes, but 

for allowing in your own life the freedom to pay attention to your 

feelings while finding your way through language . . . Into the 

unknown you must plunge, carrying your compass . . . You must 

make 'mistakes'; that is, you must explore what has not been 

mapped out for you . . . Like Don Quixote . . . you must loosen the 

reins and go blundering into adventures that await any traveller 

in this multilevel world . . . and like Don Quixote you must expect 

some disasters. You must write your bad poems and stories; for to 

write carefully as you rove forward is to guarantee that you will 

not find the unknown, the risky, the surprising. Art is an activity in 

which the actual feel of doing it must be your guide; hence the 

need for confidence, courage, independence.

WILLIAM STAFFORD

Armor is fine, but it keeps you from knowing what the weather is like.

WILLIAM STAFFORD

You're perfect as you are — and there's always room for improvement.

SHUNRYU SUZUKI

The Pilgrim's Way (10): Tao And The Journey Within

Zen pond.

How many times now

have I crossed over hill crests


with the image


of blossoms leading me on —


toward nothing but white clouds?

FUJIWARA NO SHUNZEI 

Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.

WALLACE STEVENS

Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the pond.

THE SOLITARY WALKER

Perhaps the truth depends.

THE SOLITARY WALKER

Perhaps the truth does not depend.

THE SOLITARY WALKER

The longest journey a man must take is the eighteen inches from his head to his heart.

ANON

The longest journey is the journey inward.

DAG HAMMARSKJOLD

We carry within us the wonders we seek without us.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE

But in the end, the journey is all within, isn't it? Perhaps that is why the emotions elude us when we most think they should be present. So much of why we travel is actually to learn about ourselves . . .

AMANDA from Travels with Persephone

Funny that we tend to bracket events with 'beginnings' and 'endings'. Perhaps this is just another illusion. Perhaps everything is fluid and boundless, insuring that our tiny brains will never understand the mysterious concoction of energy that we call 'life'.

GEORGE from Transit Notes

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

PROUST

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes. 

PROUST 

Banish learning, discard knowledge: people will gain a hundredfold.

LAO-TZU

Knowing others is intelligent. Knowing yourself is enlightened.

LAO-TZU

We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep. 

PROSPERO

Ain't talkin', just walkin'.

BOB DYLAN

The rest is silence.

HAMLET

The bright road seems dark,

The road forward seems to retreat,

The level road seems rough.

Great TE seems hollow.

Great purity seems sullied.

Pervasive TE seems deficient.

Established TE seems furtive.

Simple truths seem to change.

The great square has no corners.

The great vessel is finished late.

The great sound is scarcely voiced.

The great image has no form.

TAO hides, no name.

Tao yin wu ming

Yet TAO alone gets things done.

LAO-TZU

Meditation on the Far and Near / 'What Is Beyond?' Koan

What is beyond thought, beyond reason, beyond unreason, beyond feeling, beyond emotion, beyond words, beyond music, beyond poetry, beyond art, beyond birds, beasts and flowers, beyond river and rock, beyond hill and valley, beyond plain and mountain, beyond travel, beyond exploration, beyond talking, beyond walking, beyond desire and regret, beyond hope and expectation, beyond pain and pleasure, beyond memory, beyond life, beyond death, beyond silence? If love is beyond these things, what is beyond love? Is TAO beyond and before and within all these things?

THE SOLITARY WALKER

This concludes my exploratory 10-part series 'The Pilgrim's Way'; I hope you enjoyed the journey.

A Rhyming Planet

After the demise of Blockbuster, I signed up with Lovefilm. Kubrick, Godard, Woody Allen, Ken Loach, and films about Renoir and Genghis Khan are all in my queue. Plus a lot of stuff starring Gérard Depardieu.

I've just watched Joss Whedon's Much Ado about Nothing. I can't bear those criticisms about how Shakespeare can't be adapted to present-day settings. Or any historical settings. Of course he can! He's so timeless and universal that possible translations and variations are endless. The 1993 Kenneth Branagh film is not sacrosanct — much as I like it.

This black-and-white movie took a while to get into, and you had to listen hard, but it was worth it. As in any Shakespeare adaptation, it's the soaringly beautiful and witty language that shines through most of all. And Much Ado never disappoints. Though how could Shakespeare ever disappoint?

When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

**********

Now tell me, for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?

For them all together . . .

**********

I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.

**********

I would my horse had the speed of your tongue and so good a continuer.

**********

She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the north star.

**********

I was not born under a rhyming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms.

This is a most entertaining film/play, full of luscious witticisms, scintillating badinage and lyrical gems. I could have filled many blog posts with equally effervescent quotations.

Pondered Garrulousness

Two great quotes from last Saturday's Guardian Review (yes, I'm behind) . . .

Allan Cameron in his book In Praise of the Garrulous describes writing as pondered garrulousness. He also says this: Talking, listening, reading and writing add little to our GDP, but a great deal to our wellbeing.

As bloggers, I think we all know instinctively what he means.

Schoolboy Howlers

In midevil times most people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the futile ages was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature.

Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Romeo's last wish was to be laid by Juliet.

Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.

Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrim's Progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.

The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter.

It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of the blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. And Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper.

From the Internet (source unknown).

Tempest

Bob Dylan and his band live in Bologna, 2006. (Image from Wikimedia Commons.)

One minute before the day of the release of Bob Dylan's thirty-fifth studio album, Tempest, listening to the Internet-available taster track and first single, Duquesne Whistle, becomes a sacred act.

Believe in the holy contour of life. JACK KEROUAC Belief And Technique For Modern Prose

Hell is empty, and all the devils are here. SHAKESPEARE The Tempest

We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep. SHAKESPEARE The Tempest

You taught me language, and my profit on't / Is, I know how to curse. SHAKESPEARE The Tempest

I long to hear the story of your life, which must / Take the ear strangely. SHAKESPEARE The Tempest

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, / That has such people in it! SHAKESPEARE The Tempest

This thing of darkness I / Acknowledge mine. SHAKESPEARE The Tempest

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, / Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. / Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments / Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices... SHAKESPEARE The Tempest

Now I will believe / That there are unicorns... SHAKESPEARE The Tempest 

He not busy being born is busy dying. BOB DYLAN It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

Citations Quotidiennes

Every day I like ideally to walk a little, read a little, write a little, blog a little, cook a little, garden a little, meditate a little, love a little and eat a little Marmite. Oh, and learn a new word in French. It helps me keep sane and focused in an increasingly mad world.

Turnstone seeking sustenance in a shell.

A new month, a new beginning. A fresh intention is to enter on my Turnstone blog any striking, meaningful, illuminating, witty or inspiring phrase, line, poem or passage I've come across in my daily reading. Or perhaps something I've heard on the radio or eavesdropped in the street. You can click here for these small revelations.

Definition of 'turnstone': a migratory shorebird of the plover family that turns over stones in search of food.

Invincible Summer

A thousand thanks for the many wise words and quotations you left in my comments' box. Here they all are, collected together:

Prompt me, God;
but not yet...
the meaning is in the waiting. RS THOMAS

... all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things shall be well... ST JULIAN OF NORWICH

Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. HENRY VAN DYKE

Mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it. SRI NISARGADATTA MAHARAJ

Try it, what's the worst that could happen? UNATTRIBUTED

Things are in the saddle, / And ride mankind. RALPH WALDO EMERSON

I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive. JOSEPH CAMPBELL

This moment is eternal. UNATTRIBUTED

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle. PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA

Now you will feel no rain,
For each of you will be shelter to the other.

Now you will feel no cold,
For each of you will be warmth to the other.

Now there is no more loneliness,
For each of you will be companion to the other.

Now you are two bodies,
But there is only one life before you.

Go now to your dwelling place,
To enter into the days of your togetherness.

And may your days be good and long upon the earth. APACHE WEDDING BLESSING

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. HENRY DAVID THOREAU

You don't stop playing because you grow old; you grow old because you stop playing. UNATTRIBUTED

Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention. JOHN O'DONOHUE

I will add just one more of my own:

In the midst of winter, I found there was within me an invincible summer. ALBERT CAMUS

I wish everyone a Happy New Year, and may we always feel the warmth of that invincible summer in our hearts.

Beginnings And Endings

Quoting the Prologue from Bertrand Russell's Autobiography on my Turnstone blog the other day, which begins, Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind, made me think about how crucially important a good first (and last) line is in a book (or a poem or a song or a play or a film).

There are plenty of examples, often quoted, of arresting first lines; for instance, Jane Austen's novel Pride And Prejudice memorably begins: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

And the opening to Melville's Moby Dick is immortal in its stark brevity: Call me Ishmael.

L. P. Hartley's The Go-Between evokes right from the start the nostalgic heart of the novel: The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

And the beginning to Tolstoy's wonderful Anna Karenina, one of the greatest novels ever written, remains imprinted in the mind, even if its meaning is a little mysterious: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... Everyone knows these words which launch A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens; and one of the most famous first sentences of all is the one which sets the scene for George Orwell's classic dystopian novel, 1984: It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. How could you not want to read further after an opening like this?

Striking last lines are probably more difficult to find. They don't stand up as meaningfully on their own like opening lines do, since they rely on a knowledge of what's already gone before. However, there's this well known conclusion to F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: So we went on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

And there's the ending to Margaret Mitchell's romantic blockbuster, Gone With The Wind: After all, tomorow is another day!

I also like the typically doomy last line of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor Of Casterbridge: Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.

I wonder if anyone has any favourite first or last lines of books (or poems, songs, films etc) they'd like to share? Would love your thoughts on this - suggestions from any readers of this blog who don't usually comment are also very welcome...

I Walk, Therefore I Am

My work has become a simple metaphor for life. A figure walking down his road, making his mark. I am content with the vocabulary of universal and common means; walking, placing, stones, sticks, water, circles, lines, days, nights, roads. RICHARD LONG

My work really is just about being a human being living on this planet and using nature as its source. I enjoy the simple pleasures of ... eating, dreaming, happenstance, of passing through the land and sometimes leaving (memorable) traces along the way, of finding a new campsite each night. And then moving on. RICHARD LONG

What has evolved is a project that goes beyond art as an object to be looked at, to something that is a part of a landscape to be lived in. ANDY GOLDSWORTHY (Talking of his 16 year old, ongoing project of creating artworks in the Haute Provence landscape near Digne-les-Bains)

I think, therefore I am. DESCARTES

I walk, therefore I am. PIERRE GASSENDI

1 Reflection on Love

It is love alone that gives worth to all things. ST THERESA OF AVILA

2 Reflections On Glory

The greatest glory lies not in never falling, but in rising up every time we fall. CONFUCIUS/RALPH WALDO EMERSON/NELSON MANDELA

How quickly passes away the glory of this world. THOMAS A KEMPIS

3 Reflections On Penitence

The beginning of atonement is the sense of its necessity. LORD BYRON

Repentance may begin instantly, but reformation often requires a sphere of years. HENRY WARD BEECHER

He who is penitent is almost innocent. SENECA

Anyone else surprised the 1st quote comes from Lord Byron..?

This is my 600th post. No big fanfares please. Just a short blast of the trumpet will suffice ;)

Remorse for subjecting you all to this blog over the past 599 posts? Not a bit!

4 Reflections On Reflection

Reflect upon your present blessings - of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. CHARLES DICKENS

By three methods we may learn wisdom: first by reflection, which is the noblest; second by imitation, which is the easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. CONFUCIUS

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. THOMAS MERTON

Knowing others is wisdom; knowing yourself is enlightenment. LAO TZU

5 Reflections On Walking

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. JOHN MUIR

Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. SOREN KIERKEGAARD

The civilized man has built a coach, but he has lost the use of his feet. RALPH WALDO EMERSON

My God is the God of Walkers. If you walk hard enough, you probably don't need any other god. BRUCE CHATWIN

Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only beast which ruminates when walking. When a traveler asked Wordsworth's servant to show him her master's study, she answered, 'Here is his library, but his study is out of doors.' HENRY DAVID THOREAU

6 Reflections On Pilgrimage

Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy, but it is very rare because most people are strategists. ANITA BROOKNER

Religion points to that area of human experience where in one way or another man comes upon a mystery as a summons to pilgrimage. FREDERICK BUECHNER

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. HEBREWS 11:13

Don't be fooled into thinking you are supposed to arrive at a destination. It is the going that is central, the you that is going. Your pilgrimage is really about yourself observing your own transit across the landscape. RICHARD LEVITON

A pilgrim is a wanderer with a purpose. PEACE PILGRIM

A pilgrimage is an embodied prayer. MARA FREEDMAN

7 Reflections on Travel

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

Travelling is like flirting with life. It's like saying, 'I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.' LISA ST AUBIN DE TERAN

He who would travel happily must travel light. ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY

Tourists don't know where they've been; travellers don't know where they're going. PAUL THEROUX

The traveller sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see. G. K. CHESTERTON

So much of who we are is where we have been. WILLIAM LANGEWIESCHE

You cannot travel the path until you become the path itself. THE BUDDHA