‘I do not know what my book will be to others - nothing perhaps. To me it means a last act of defense against the chaos of the world; & I hope for ten years to write out of my renewed security’ W.B. Yates "A Vision"
Here Yeats indicates that he had been seeking a vision of reality that conformed adequately to his own character and predispositions to sustain him creatively, yet which was more than an expression of personal idiosyncrasy and had a universal validity: 'Except at the start of a new topic, when I would speak or write a dozen sentences unquestioned, I had always to question, and every question to rise out of a previous answer and to deal with their chosen topic... Then when I had ceased all active search, yet had not ceased from desire, the documents upon which (A Vision) is founded were put into my hands, and I had what I needed...They have helped me to hold in a single thought reality and justice.'
‘though the seeds of (Yeats’s) thought’ might not ‘instantly take root and fructify in my mind’, they would ‘have their own growth’ and that he might later find himself ‘comprehending much that is now unintelligible’ George Russell
Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught in falsehoods school. And the person that dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool. Plato
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right. Thomas Paine
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Secondly, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Arthur Schopenhauer
George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-Four's Doublethink: To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, any fact that has become inconvenient, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself - that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act you had just performed.
As in my case this meant being able to falsify records, and then believe in the new history that they, themselves, had just written.
U.S. attornyes using unmitigated gall to humiliate along with innuendo, half-truths and falsehoods for perversion of justice and duping the legal system. "It is simply not done in a civilized jurisdiction that is bound by the rule of law. This was an egregious abuse of process and brought the administration of justice into disrepute", B.C. Supreme Court judge Ronald McKinnon
A wake-up call for the legal profession: A system of justice which does not respond to the needs of the society which it purports to serve is doomed to failure. Any such failure will eventually have catastrophic social implications. Richard W. Pound
People are experiencing injustices at the hands of the legal system on an almost daily bases with little or no chance of recourse.
The absolute rights of man, considered as a free agent, endowed with discernment to know good from evil, and with power of choosing those measures which appear to him to be most desirable, are usually summed up in one general appellation, and denominated the natural liberty of mankind. But every man, when he enters into society, gives up a part of his natural liberty in return for access to the protection of the Law. Once these Laws are made it’s the job of the judge to listen and make judgements when there are disputes and allegations of wrong doings. This position as you would expect requires the holder to be of impeccable character and hold the highest moral standards and unshakeable integrity. There can be no lesser qualifications for a position in society of such importance.
A biased judge is one that doesn't seek to achieve the right result but rather seeks to serve his or her own personal likes and dislikes that have nothing to do with the legal issues before the judge. Secret bias is hard to uncover, but often bias is not difficult to uncover and is often flaunted by a judge and used to prove how powerful he or she is. She can reward her friends, usually lawyers in the case, that hold the same beliefs or punish people she doesn't like. Court Watch
All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind - John Donne
A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?Why hast thou forsaken me?
The most precious gift that marriage gave me was this constant impact of something very close and intimate yet all the time unmistakably other, resistant - in a word, real. Is all that work to be undone? Oh my dear, my dear, come back for one moment and drive that miserable phantom away. Oh God, God, why did you take such trouble to force this creature out of its shell if it is now doomed to crawl back — to be sucked back - into it?
Where is she now? That is, in what place is she at the present time? Suppose that the earthly lives she and I shared for a few years are in reality only the basis for, or prelude to, or earthly appearance of, two unimaginable, supercosmic, eternal somethings. You tell me, 'she goes on.' But my heart and body are crying out, come back, come back. But I know this is impossible. I know that the thing I want is exactly the thing I can never get. The old life, the jokes, the drinks, the arguments, the lovemaking, the tiny, heartbreaking commonplace. 'All that is gone. It is a part of the past. And that, just that, is what I cry out for, with mad, midnight endearments and entreaties spoken into the empty air.
What chokes every prayer and every hope is the memory of all the prayers she and I offered and all the false hopes we had. Not hopes raised merely by our own wishful thinking, hopes encouraged, even forced upon us, by false diagnoses, by X-ray photographs, by strange remissions, by one temporary recovery that might have ranked as a miracle. Step by step we were led up the garden path. Time after time, when she seemed most gracious she was really preparing the next torture.
We are so depraved that our ideas of goodness count for nothing; or worse than nothing - the very fact that we think something good is presumptive evidence that it is really bad. Now God has in fact - our worst fears are true - all the characteristics we regard as bad: unreasonableness, vanity, vindictiveness, injustice, cruelty. But all these blacks are really whites. It's only our depravity that makes them look black to us.
Aren't all these notes the senseless writhings of a man who won't accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it? Who still thinks there is some device (if only he could find it) which will make pain not to be pain. It doesn't really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist's chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on.
And grief still feels like fear. Perhaps, more strictly, like suspense. Or like waiting; just hinging about waiting for something to happen. It gives life a permanently provisional feeling. It doesn't seem worth starting anything. I can't settle down. Was it my own frantic need that slammed it in my face? The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can't give it: you are like the drowning man who can't be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear.
On the other hand, "Knock and it shall be opened." But does knocking mean hammering and kicking the door like a maniac? In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize that fact was to knock it down. From C.S. Lewis "A Grief Observed"
C.S. Lewis - A Grief Observed
Aldous Huxley's "The Perennial Philosophy"
Defend your right to disrobe a biased or prejudiced judge whose opinion and judgment (by using guilt and shame) has adversely affected your worth as a human being and thus limited your capacity to be fully alive in the present moment. Every external form of bondage in human history reflects the psychic confinement of the soul resulting from ignorance and unquestioned beliefs. Unfortunately, this process suppresses your spontaneity, aliveness, and instinctual power. Perhaps you needed the judge’s firm support and direction as you presented your case in the hope for a fair and unbiased evaluation and assessment. However, there are times when the outcome of that development may not be grounded in your true nature but on a false and distorted version or reality. Only true maturation and the development of your ability to be authentically yourself can replace the judge with a living conscience.
Our bodies inhabit a natural vitality and the influence of people we trusted and respected, accepted as authorities, have overwritten the blueprint to a fearful and negative pattern.
Let fear of retribution give way to self-trust and curiosity. From hopelessness and defeat can arise acceptance and confidence. And truth guides the journey. In combination with the grounding and practicality of your personal will, truth acts as an objective conscience for action in the world.
Caruso - Gigi Finizio Lucio Dalla Gigi D'Alessio - Pavarotti Here where the sea sparkles and the wind is blowing on a terrace so old, before the Gulf of Sorrento a man holds a girl after she had been crying then he clears his throat and his song starts again: I love you so much I really love you, so much. Now it's a tie that melts the blood inside the veins, you know. He saw the lights in the middle of the sea, he thought of the nights he spent in America but it was just the fishing lights and a white wake of a propeller he looked into her eyes,those eyes as green as the sea then suddenly she shed a tear and he felt like he was drowning.
Burning Man Voyage in Utopia David Best dedicates this interactive artwork to the departed love ones and to the. miracle of life. "It evokes the inexpressible, it invites imagination to inhabit the unknown,” says Larry Harvey. What I love about Burning Man is that it encourages people to give expression to their wildest dreams, their most whimsical ideas, their grandest - and often grandiose - artistic impulses. Burning Man embraces it all, saying, in effect, there is a place, right here in the middle of nowhere, where you can be whatever you want to be. The only condition is that you do it in the spirit of community and good fun. Scott London
Venus and Sailor - Salvador Dali. The aim of Surrealism is to revolutionize human experience, by freeing people from what is seen as false rationality, and restrictive customs and structures.
Infinite things desired, lofty visions ’Got on desirous thought by natural virtue, And the wise concord, whence through delicious seas The arcane spirit of the whole Mankind turns hardy pilot . . . and if one wrong note strike the tympanum, instantly that paradise is hurled to nothingness. O mortal nature, if thou art how canst thou reach so high with thy poor sense; Yet if thou art noble in any part how is the noblest of thy speech and thought so lightly wrought or to such base occasion lit and quenched? Giacomo Leopardi The Translations of Ezra Pound
Politics can’t change the world anymore. I believe that art is the only thing which can change the world to a better place. Art forces us to think critically, and to not see the world in black and white.” Dida Zende. "I think music is light years ahead of politics and social issues." Marc Fourier
Break free from the grip of fear and shed the worn-out stories of the past the way the serpent sheds her skin. Discover how to transform your deepest wounds into sources of power to heal and compassion.
So strong is the belief in life, in what is most fragile in life - real life, I mean - that in the end this belief is lost. Man, that inveterate dreamer, daily more discontent with his destiny... At this point he feels extremely modest: he knows what women he has had, what silly affairs he has been involved in; he is unimpressed by his wealth or his poverty, in this respect he is still a newborn babe and, as for the approval of his conscience, I confess that he does very nicely without it. If he still retains a certain lucidity, all he can do is turn back toward his childhood which, however his guides and mentors may have botched it, still strikes him as somehow charming. There, the absence of any known restrictions allows him the perspective of several lives lived at once; this illusion becomes firmly rooted within him; now he is only interested in the fleeting, the extreme facility of everything. Everything is near at hand, the worst material conditions are fine. The woods are white or black, one will never sleep. Manifesto of Surrealism by Andre Breton
George Orwell -The Road to Wigan Pier "Given the chaos of the economy, the uncertainties, the insecurities of being poor in this century, we need a new generation of chroniclers of the working class."
“There comes a time when you have to stand up and shout: This is me damn it! I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel, love the way I love! I am a whole complex package. Take me... or leave me. Accept me - or walk away! Do not try to make me feel like less of a person, just because I don't fit your idea of who I should be ..." Stacey Charter
Group Doueh - Sublime Frequencies , The group's sound is rooted in the traditional foundations of Sahrawi/Hassania music. It shares its roots with the neighboring styles of Mauritanian music. This is the sound of searing, meditative, and hypnotic modal sandstorm of note clusters of the Sahara desert. Wazan Samat
PALACE OF THE WINDS a film by Hisham Mayet explores the intoxicating tapestry of sight and sound that this obscure region has to offer from some of its legendary musicians.
Howie Tsui's Horror Fable explore elements of ancient legends and ghost stories while satirizing the cultural and individual uses of fear to produce a chaotic mess. "...governments and corporations have very concertedly use fear to keep the populace cowed and complacent by relinquishing some basic human rights and embracing some alarming hatreds."
Bolivia is set to pass the world's first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth. The country will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered. It will also enshrine the right of nature "to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities".
The draft of the new law states: "She is sacred, fertile and the source of life that feeds and cares for all living beings in her womb. She is in permanent balance, harmony and communication with the cosmos. She is comprised of all ecosystems and living beings, and their self-organisation."
It was already half past three but the night was young and so were we dancing. Ney, nah neh nah (Ney, nah neh nah) Oh Lord, did we have a ball still singing, walking down that hall, that Ney, nah neh nah (Ney, nah neh nah) Vaya Dias - Milk & Sugar vs. Vaya Con Dios
Manu Chao - Me gustas tu Que voy a hacer, je ne sais pas. Que voy a hacer, Je ne sais plus. Que voy a hacer, Je suis perdu. Que horas son, mi corazn What am I gonna do, I don’t know. What am I gonna do, I don’t know anymore. What am I gonna do, I’m lost. What time is it, my heart?
Madeleine Peyroux - Weary Blues
LHASA - La Marée Haute - Hide Tide. The road is singing, when I set out. I take three steps, the road grows silent. The road is dark, as far as I can see. I take three steps, the road is gone. I climbed up on the high tide. The head is full but the heart wants more. Hands of lace, wooden face, body of brick, eyes that sting. Hands of lace, wooden face. I take three steps and you are there. I climbed up on the high tide. The head is full but the heart wants more
What exactly do people mean when they speak of the self? Its defining characteristics are fourfold. First of all, continuity. You've a sense of time, a sense of past, a sense of future. There seems to be a thread running through your personality, through your mind. Second, closely related is the idea of unity or coherence of self. In spite of the diversity of sensory experiences, memories, beliefs and thoughts, you experience yourself as one person, as a unity.
So there's continuity, there's unity. And then there's the sense of embodiment or ownership - yourself as anchored to your body. And fourth is a sense of agency, what we call free will, your sense of being in charge of your own destiny.
Our brains were essentially model-making machines. We need to construct useful, virtual reality simulations of the world that we can act on. Within the simulation, we need also to construct models of other people's minds because we're intensely social creatures. We need to do this so we can predict their behaviour. We are, after all, the Machiavellian primate. For example, you want to know was what he did a wilful action. In that case he might repeat it. Or was it involuntary in which case it's quite benign. Indeed evolution may have given us the skill even before self-awareness emerged in the brain.
Derealisation and Depersonalisation it's seen in acute anxiety, panic attacks, depression and other dissociative states. Suddenly the world seems completely unreal - like a dream. Why does this happen? You've all heard of the phrase, playing possum. An opossum when chased by a predator suddenly loses all muscle tone and plays dead. Why? This is because any movement by the possum will encourage the predatory behaviour of the carnivore - and carnivores also avoid dead infected food. So playing dead is very adaptive for the possum. Playing possum in the emotional realm and it's an evolutionary adaptive mechanism. Vilayanur S. Ramachandran
Love is the sweet expression of life. It is the supreme content of life. The flower of life blooms in love and radiates love all around. What a comfort love brings to the heart. The heart tickles with the thought of love, and waves of life begin to roll on the ocean of love.
Love is highly sensitive. It is the most delicate power of life. And life is a most dynamic expression of love. Love is delicate, and at the same time, it is most vital and strong. A tiny, tender wave of love rocks the boat of life. Love takes life from the pangs of separation, to the bliss of eternal union
A tiny hope of love brings the light of dawn through the darkness of the lengthy night. And love, even as a twinkling of the faintest star, keeps the light at the altar shining. And in that faintest light of love, someday the beloved finds his way, and creeps on in silence, in quietness, drawn by the tiny, tiny love which kept the door open in the hope of fulfillment. In the hope of fulfillment that someday, and sometime, the darkness of the night would give way to the brightness of the midday sun in a clear sky.
The delicate and kind hand of love takes life from the prick of thorns, to the softness and tenderness of a rose. On the softness of the cradle of love, the life swings from the loneliness of a desperate quest, to the rich planes of fulfillment. Love is the most precious gift of God to us; let us use it for all good. Let not the din of the world, and the thick and thin of life disturb the fullness of love in us. Let us be full of grace, and full of light. And in the fullness of love, let us be up and awake to serve the will of God and rise to be of real service to ourselves and to our fellow men.
Janelle Monae - Cold War
So you think I'm alone, but being alone the only way to be. But when you step outside, you spend life fighting for your sanity. This is a cold war, you better know what your fighting for. This is a cold war. Do you know what your fighting for?
If you wanna be free, below the ground's the only place to be. Cause in this life you spend time fighting of the depravity.
Bring wings to the weak and bring grace to the strong. May all evil stumble as it flies in the world. All the tribes comes and the mighty will crumble. We must brave this night and have faith in love. I'm trying to find my peace. I was made to believe there's something wrong with me and it hurts my heart. Lord have mercy, ain't it plain to see? Janelle Monae
