Remember, nothing prevents you from being a saint.

[Book.]

And if I think about it thoroughly, maybe she didn’t save me, after all. That is only how I desire to remember, an homage to her pretty face. True, she had kept watch over me, but all I had needed was a sound night’s sleep; no demons did she excorcise, no poisons did she suck out of me. It was just the picture of her face, when I awoke: so angelic, almost as I imagine halos to be worn did she wear the light of that morning. I ascribed everything to what struck me, just then, created a myth out of a photograph in time. And the three days that we had, that kiss that still haunts me — the heart can craft such a story when it is taken by beauty. But still, I will never truly shake it all off, the memory of that light. However much I decide it was ordinary, it will fill a unique hole in the center of my soul.

Where there is dream, there is hope. Even though in this world, so many hopes are dashed, so many dreams fall by the wayside, people yet dare to dream on, to hope as far as their hearts can reach. I sometimes wonder how it would be to lose such a thing as a great dream, a lifetime’s work: how does one pick up the pieces when the hope is lost? I imagine, too, that if one does do such a thing, and keep on when there is naught but dust where dream used to be: this, too, is a noble thing. For when you are on the wrong side of zero, nothing is something. And I think it escapes not the eyes from on high when mighty you struggle, no matter what the outcome. Or to make of what is shattered something that works, however meager its final capacity may be.

O Holy Spirit, Who breathe where you will, come into me and snatch me up to yourself. Fortify the nature you have created, with gifts so flowing with honey that, from intense joy in your sweetness, it may despise and reject all which is in this world, that it may accept spiritual gifts, and through melodious jubilation, it may entirely melt in holy love, reaching out for uncircumscribed Light.

dreaming speaks in secret the things that are plain to angels
love, the speaking of what is divine in us through crude instruments
and silent, we, in our deepest hopes, lest they drop out our lips

No hell below us
Above us, only sky

– John Lennon

Antonio Puri: Revisiting Sarnath 1

Click on the pic for a larger version.

I’ve always thought that the measure of sainthood is how inconvenienced you let yourself be.

Night falls, dreamtime to flow from the ether into our sleep.

Night falls, if dark enough, one may imagine oneself hovering.

Night falls, and everywhere is nowhere from one perspective.

Night falls, stillness that may only be an illusory phenomenon.

Night falls, clouds that melt with the horizon, invisible stars.

Night falls, the eyes of a cat glowing with ghostly recognition.

Night falls, an instantaneous hush as a single candle is lit.

[Book.]

Sometimes I think that I am tired of these dreams. I get lost in some of them, and some of them get lost in me. It is not a wall that God has where all the good poetry and equations are written; what He has is a well wet with thought, from which some may drink, and into which some have drowned. If you’ve ever had a taste, you would know what a temptation it is to jump in, to swim in it, to be one with the pure flow. But it is quite another thing when you’re choking on it, have it coming out of your nose, unable to decide what is real and what is the fantasia that long has swum in those depths. Some of the dreams I recall are not dreams, and they have happened to me in real life, however far removed I have located myself from such solidities. Some of my memories are dreams awoke in secret, threaded themselves into my waking timeline. And I fear I shall never sort them out, know for sure what is life, and what is the monster.

The last and highest result of prayer is not the securing of this or that gift, the avoiding of this or that danger. The last and highest result of prayer is the knowledge of God — the knowledge which is eternal life — and by that knowledge, the transformation of human character, and of the world.

these dreams i dream
(solid as beams of light through glass
and the strange clarity of significance)
ever grow in distance
at times to fire of greater consequence
turning fierce constellations in my sky
still to consume me

[Book.]

And I wonder if I am making this all up, somewhere confused with memory, of the day she saved me. I seem to recall that I was drunk one night, especially drunk. I was depressed for some reason (for which probably would mean very little to me now), and it was college. So it was off to a fraternity party of some random greek letter combination, and lots and lots of beer. Perhaps there were shots of some stronger stuff; the night was pretty much a lost one. When I woke up, on one of the couches in the living room, there she was, hovering above me. A bit of the halo of morning light around her, that being probably caused by the fact that I was still buzzed from the night before. She said that they had been worried about me, and she had volunteered to see if I stopped breathing at any point, or began to choke on my own vomit, or tried to have sex with a power outlet. She looked tired. She was so beautiful…. Or maybe all of that’s fake, a dream I forgot was a dream.

This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us

– Queen

Max Ernst: Ubu Imperator

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I am tested at every turn, all these challenges of mine watched from above. The blessing is the curse. The curse is the blessing. Somewhere in me is the notion that I will succeed in becoming fully realized as a human being, but there are instances along the way where I feel the temptation to surrender to the weakness. Even in succeeding, there is the pride I must not succumb to that I have won, for the victory is never mine; I have only done as I was told, and I am an unprofitable servant, after all is said and done. Most times, in fact, I am worse, one that loses valuable things for my master — little pieces of my soul that I kill, for it is not mine, all that is me. I have been given everything that comprises me, and all that I really can say is my function is to press on with as much will as I can muster. To do as I should, with all of what I am.