Cloak of clouds

For anyone passing through a bad time. Just another reminder that better times always comes by the hand of intelligence and sensibility. There in the north, today it ends the winter.

'What do you make so fair and bright?'

'I make the cloak of Sorrow:
O lovely to see in all men's sight
Shall be the cloak of Sorrow,
In all men's sight.'

'What do you build with sails for flight?'

'I build a boat for Sorrow:
O swift on the seas all day and night
Saileth the rover Sorrow,
All day and night.'

What do you weave with wool so white?'

'I weave the shoes of Sorrow:
Soundless shall be the footfall light
In all men's ears of Sorrow,
Sudden and light.'

William Butler Yeats, "The cloak, the boat and the shoes".

Clover

Happy hangover of the Ain't Patty's Day! You went through the most alcoholic day in the year and survived gallons of toxic delight, so you deserve a clover now (or you can revisit a Shamrock). Congratulations, this is the stuff the heroes are made of: endurance. This is your almost-irish clover:



We don't celebrate Saint Patrick's Day in Argentina, except some irish settled here, but I enjoy knowing that people survives severe tests in other zones of the world. In the end, being argentinian is, somehow, surviving a severe test of endurance too.
I not only like clover flowers a lot, but I also use this haiku in a very ironic way, and I mention this just in case your alcohol gaze do not allow you to notice :-P Hihi.

bush-clover flowers —
they sway but do not drop
their beads of dew

Matsuo Basho.

She's like a rainbow (I & II)

She comes in colors ev'rywhere;
when She combs her hair
She's like a rainbow
Coming, colors in the air
Oh, everywhere
She comes in colors

Have you seen her dressed in blue?
See the sky in front of you
And her face is like a sail
Speck of white so fair and pale
Have you seen a lady fairer?

Have you seen her all in gold?
Like a queen in days of old
She shoots colors all around
Like a sunset going down
Have you seen a lady fairer?

She comes in colors ev'rywhere;
when She combs her hair
She's like a rainbow
Coming, colors in the air
Oh, everywhere
She comes in colors

Mick Jagger / Keith Richards, "She's a rainbow". You can play the song down here:

The Ten

up through bamboo. leave the first stage:
pass illusion: go by lotus mountain:
through the pass, there’s the whole of ch’u:
beyond the woods see the distant plain:
cross-legged on a mat of grass:
hear scriptures in the high pine:
reach the void: through clouds of law:
meditate to achieve nirvana.

Wang Wei, "The ten stages of perception".

The Four

Four are the noble truths of Buddhism, four are the horsemen of the Apocalypse, four are the nucleobase in DNA, four is the valency of carbon (base of life in earth), four are the Aristotle's causes in nature, the greek's classical elements are four, four are the dimensions, the sphynx (superconscious) it is composed by four animals, four rivers in the garden of Eden, four are the letters of the name of the God of Israel.
Four is the number representing completion and stability (One is the male principle, Two is the feminine, Three is the synthesis of the previous -the idea and self-expression, and Four is the material manifestation, system and order of the idea; it is the dream come true of the represented by the three).
Art is revealed and related to the human spirit in four ways: beauty, truth, goodness, and love.

Abstract Nº50

In artistic sensuality, you get in artistic fiction what you never get in life: not just pleasure but satisfaction as well. Satisfaction may mean that Your good always gets rewarded and Your evil always gets punished, or, it may mean that the structure of this world where high standards of morality go hand in hand with dominating power, gets exposed in fiction, so that the triumph, finally, belongs to those who laugh last, and not to those who always win in practice.

Lev Kreft, "Mission(s) of Art".

Progression wheel

Yesterday was a hectic day, so I had a brake listening to some of my old punk records, the few I have left. Well, the image is not a worthy companion of the song, but neither the progress quoted in the song it's real progress though; so... :-/ wysiwyg

Down with history
Down with sense
Nothing makes much difference
I'll surrender to this tragic mess
Spinning ball of randomness
Where Logos is the finest blasphemy

Men's lives pass like strips of film
Recorded gesture, acts of will
I'd like to think that down through time
They'd compose a logical line
But chances are that's just a pile of shit

And I can't help but bow my head and cry
It took so long to finally realize
That all our hopes are based on such gross lies

Classroom lessons World War Two
Atrocities against the Jews
Never again our solemn vow
That's why we all share Cambodia
Isn't it great how far we've come since then?

And I can't help but bow my head and cry
It took so long to finally realize
That all our hopes are based on such gross lies

Dialectic's shit
Evolution's crap
Time and time again the masquerade is
Shown for what it really is:
Progress, progress it's a pleasant myth
Progress, progress it's a pleasant myth

Progress, progress
Pleasant myth
That makes my life worthwhile

Mission of Burma, "Progress" (You can listen to the legendary song down here -needs realplayer to):

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Abstract Nº49

As if this were words of my mother for me, I quote this, so close to her lifepath:

Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not:
Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s,
Thy God’s, and truth’s; then if thou fall’st, O Cromwell,
Thou fall’st a blessed martyr!

William Shakespeare, "King Henry VIII" (Act III. Scene 2).

Abstract Nº48

Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, and rightful leader of Burma, has been forcefully and criminally interned under house arrest for too many years. It is time for Burma to be set free. It is time for justice and human rights to prevail.

Annie Lennox.



The Cult - "Wake up time for freedom", the song here:

Smoke on the water

The first rock song I ever liked; was just a child. Smoke on the water, fire in the sky. :-)



You can play the song down here: