Reflections of a Man's Heart

Today, Mariannne (to the left) has arrived from Argentina. . .

I went out wityh V and Marianne (her sister). I haven't met her for about four years, and it was a coincidence she wanted to visite while I was in Seoul, so I had just one day to meet her ^^

. . .

Marianne arrived here for a visit, so the plan was to stay at V's home.

However, the real plans includes to meet a guy from Uruguay she really likes . . .

Hmm. Sounds like "pre-commit" time.

. . .

After meeting her, I think she really likes him, so I couldn't help but offer her my house, while I stay out in Seoul, so they can share the *real* thing. . .

It is reallly important to share some time with somebody you like before you commit, and while I'm in Korea, they can stay at home. . .

Love songs are nice, but nothing like having to clean the dishes to find out what reality looks like.

Now,  Marianne, sweetie, *please*, have a nice time with that uruguayan guy at home ^^

All the best for you, M-sweetie ^^

. . .

And, now I'm just 24 hours from meeting Rye-mi. . .

I really, *really* need to meet Rye Mi after so much time ^^

. . .

I wish I were close

To you as the wet skirt of

A salt girl to her body.

I think of you always.

- Yamabe No Akahito

Days that could have

been anything,

nights that could have been anything,

turned with the leaves.

Then, someone played

the piano -

halting,

unpracticed, and perfect.

I listened to pity

and lowered my head in shame.

Ashamed not at my tears,

or even at what has been wasted,

but to have been dry-eyed so long.

- Jane Hirshfield, The lives of the heart

One year has passed since I met 례미 in Bern, in September 27. . .

At that moment, i was sitting in the greenhouse devoted to rainforest, lazily reading whatever, and saw her looking inside, unable to find the door. . .

- Hey, the door was *really* difficult to find ^^

So, I told her (with signs), "the door is over here" . . .

We started to talk, found out that she was coming to Barcelona in two days, and that Bern was the last city I was to visit in my tour.

So, we met in BCN several days later, one day before she was about to travel to Madrid.

And, I remember a digit in the phone number I gave was wrong (!) . . .

. . . and my computer was broken, so I couldn't read e-mail until two days after I arrived home (!!)

Wow!

. . .

Nowadays, I keep opening all difficult to find doors, just in case. . .

. . .

See you in the Incheon airport in 5 days, sweetie.

사랑해

The treasure at the heart of the rose

is your own heart's treasure.

Scatter it as the rose does:

your pain becomes hers to measure.

Scatter it in a song,

or in one great love's desire.

Do not resist the rose

lest you burn in its fire.

- Gabriela Mistral (Chile)

In a letter sent in 1862 to Thomas Wenworth Higginson, poetry editor of The Atlantic, Emily Dickinson wrote:

I have a Brother and a Sister

- My Mother does not care for thought

- and Father, too busy with his Briefs

- to notice what we do

- He buys me many Books

- but begs me not to read them

- because he fears they joggle the Mind

They are religious

- except me

and address an Eclipse,

every morning

- whom they call their 'Father'

Yet, in Dickinson's poems you can find the deepest spirituality . . .

So, once again, it is proved that courage and love go hand in hand. . .

. . . that love is courage - or it isn't.

^^

Emily Dickinson was born December 10, 1830, into one of the prominent families of Amherst Massachusetts.

. . .

She was educated in Amherst Academy . . . during that time an evangelical religious revival was sweeping the country; when the principal asked "all those who wanted to be Christian" to rise from their seats, Emily was the only student who did not stand...

. . .

After her return from the Mound Holyoke Female Seminary (where she stayed for just one year), she left her parents house only twice -once for treatment of an eye condition . . .

. . .

Yet, in spite of this seemingly narrow existence, the 1,776 poems found after her death sewed neatly info pamphlets are models of freedom: freedom of thought , freedom of reference, freedom to take her own paths of poetic technique, freedom of feeling.

"My Business," she stated in another letter, "is Circumference" -and a vast world of imagination, observation, and precisely articulated spiritual and emotional experience is held within the circle of her words.

. . .

Emily Dickinson love poems are probably the best of all time. . .

Only a handful of Heian-era women poets in japan have reached such great heights. . .

Dickinson sensibility and courage remind us of a simple truth: no matter what happens, no matter what is there, many, many worlds are possible . . .

Here and Now.

. . .

Even when there seems not to be a possibility, freedom can grow and bloom.

Inwards, if it need be.

"What is important can't be seen with the eyes" ^^

;)

KYE HO! Wonderful!

Lotus pollen wakes up in the heart's center -

The bright flower is free from mud.

Where do the color and fragrance come from?

What reason now to accepts them or turn away?

- Trantric Buddhist Women's Song (India)

A land not mine, still

forever memorable,

the waters of its ocean

chill and fresh.

Sand on the bottom whiter than chalk,

and the air drunk, like wine,

late sun lays bare

the rosy limbs of the pinetrees.

Sunset in the ethereal waves:

I cannot tell if the day

is ending, or the world, or if

the secret of secrets is inside me again.

- Anna Akhmatova, Russia

Birth, old age,

Sickness, and death:

From the beginning,

This is the way

Thing have always been.

Any thought

Of release from this life

Will wrap you only more tightly

In its snares.

The sleeping person

Looks for a Buddha,

The troubled prson

Turns toward meditation.

But the one who knows

That there's nothing to seek

Knows too that there's nothing to say.

She keeps her mouth closed.

- Ly Ngoc Kieu (Vietnam)

As a symbol

of sacred mysteries,

I, Sabina,

daughter of Lampadius

and so of an honorable person,

here erected

to Attis and Rhea

an altar forever.

Deo's orgies

and the terrifying

Hekate nights

I experienced.

- Sabina Lampadius (ancient Rome)