"Her face was beautiful from every angle..." [John Glassco writing in his memoir Memories of Montparnasse] / "All I need in life is an onion, a bit of bread and a bottle of red wine, and I'll always find someone to give me that..." [Kiki of Montparnasse]
"In old age wandering on a trail of beauty lively may I walk ..."
~ American Indian Chant
Image of the Boulevard du Palais in Paris, circa 1870-1889 from the Rijksmuseum
Indeed, the city has a centuries-old tradition of solo exploration, personified by the flâneur, or stroller. Flânerie is, in its purest form, a goal-less pursuit, though for some it evolved into a purposeful art: Walking and observing became a method of understanding a city, an age. Baudelaire described the flâneur as a passionate spectator, one who was fond of “botanizing on the asphalt,” as the essayist Walter Benjamin would later put it.
~ an excerpt from Solo in Paris
The interaction of light and air and water / June 2013
... and so the soul warrior set off on the road again with a Jack Kerouac quote in his pocket and his loved ones in his heart ...
“Hold together, Jack, pass through everything, everything is one dream, one appearance, one flash, one sad eye, one crystal lucid mystery, one word — Hold still, man, regain your love of life and go down from this mountain and simply be—be—be the infinite fertilities of the one mind of infinity, make no comments, complaints, criticisms, appraisals, avowals, sayings, shooting stars of thought, just flow, flow, be you all, be you what it is, it is only what it always is — Hope is a word like a snow-drift — This is the Great Knowing, this is the Awakening, this is Voidness — So shut up, live, travel, adventure, bless and don't be sorry—” (Jack Kerouac)
Rabbits poolside / June 2013
“Unusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.”
~ Kurt Vonnegut
Happy hour by the sea / Long Beach Island, NJ
This was the day of sitting beside the powerful roar of the ocean. Of relaxing in the tug of the wind. Of melting into the music and singing. Of telling stories and celebrating integrity and example and 82 years.
View from the path, on the lookout for fruit trees bending their branches down / detail from a photo by JG
This was the day when the warrior girl resolved to cultivate the habit of embracing the four dignities of the warrior's path so as to become a better warrior (and thus, a better person).
The Four Dignities of the Warrior's Path (via Rob Brezsny):
- The first dignity: Relaxed confidence; being at home in one's body.
- The second dignity: Irrepressible joy. To develop it, a warrior cultivates the habit of seeing the best in everything and works diligently to avoid the self-indulgence of cynicism.
- The third dignity: Outrageousness. The warrior who embodies this dignity loves to experiment, is not addicted to strategies that have been successful in the past, and has a passionate objectivity that's free of the irrelevant emotions of hope and fear.
- The fourth dignity: Inscrutability. A skill at evading the pigeonholes and simplistic definitions that might limit the warrior's inventiveness while fighting for his or her moral vision.
The newscast says that they've reached a compromise on taxing health care plans and that an individual paying $8,500 a year has a “gold-plated” health insurance policy. Excuse me? Since when is there a correlation between what health insurance costs and the benefits that you get? Not in any of the plans that are available to me. I am only $868 away from that number — and I'll probably be there next year. OK. I just read a story about this at the NYTimes. It mentions “employer-sponsored” insurance plans. Does that mean it doesn't include me since I pay for it all myself? Just like everything else in this health care bill nothing is clear and: “Congressional leaders have been careful to stress that nothing is agreed on in the health care talks until everything is agreed on.” Great. Maybe I should take up smoking and imagine myself sitting under the Moorish arches and tile work on the patio cafe at the La Tour Hassan Hotel. Perhaps that will calm my nerves?
“If you get far enough away
you'll be on your way back home.”
“The everyday practice is simply to develop a complete
acceptance and openness
to all situations and emotions.And to all people — experiencing everything totally without reservations
and blockages, so that one never
withdraws or centralizes onto oneself.”~ an excerpt from the Maha Atia text
“The idea of movement was more important than actually going somewhere.”
~ Persis M. Karim writing in her story Paris Rendez-vous