"pratiques qui sont de nature purement defensive"

maitriser, cette lecon.
l'un sur la defense.
cet eleve n'est pas en mesure d'apprendre.
pas de joie. pas d'espoir. pas de paix. pas de resoudre.
il n'y a pas d'aller de l'avant si l'on doit toujours regarder en arriere.

tu comprends, oui?

cet etudiant ne serait pas qui ils sont
si ils ne voient pas le monde comme ils le font.

...

"Et moi, je vais fleurir ici dans ma chambre
avec un peu d'eau
et un peu de lumiere du soleil."

Cotton Mather

"Wilderness is a temporary condition
through which we are passing to the
Promised Land."

winters

"Without undergoing a winter
that bites into your bones
How can the plum blossoms regale you
with their piercing fragrance?"

setting sun

"their sun isnt rising z"

listening.

"its always setting...always darkness."

silence.

"and no. dont even go there. no stars or moon. just darkness. not the sensual seductive kind. plain old black z. like black after its been through the wash too many times."

i finally laughed.

swings

...silly games in daylight...and some peace late evenings.

i have traveled home with someone who has allowed me a quiet peace.
my murmurings now and again
my endless questions of why, what value, how is this a win
she listens...quietly
hands me tissues
jokes, "look up zane, look up"
and we laugh...there is always laughter.

...

and steve in his assessment of all things not so nice
is generally right
has been for years
and I still struggle to find resolve with the facts

...

we walked to the park
the swings...
and the height, the throwing your head back
to see the world upside down, the stars in the sky
the swings...
and steve
as he flew off
paused in mid air for a second, scared for a second
landing surprised...laughing.

that laughter, that joy, that "doing it again"
this...is all that matters

....

I look back two years and six days ago
I am reminded of a training room at SF Center
And a conference call
and the tears that would not stop running down my face

I think through all of this
and the actions i would take within less than a month
actions on principle
because to stay was to sanction an injustice

and i wonder
was i really so wrong
was it a masquerade
are you not what i thought you were...ever?

i wonder.

the image that stays, beyond all the mayhem
beyond all the pain
beyond that which this has all become
this image of how i will always carry you with me...
this memory...let me take you back

i would leave shortly after (that injustice)
and upon my departure...the get together on the patio
you addressed the group
the group quiet...you standing...white shirt, navy slacks, hair pulled back
your husband standing an arms length away
you spoke of me...of my work
and you raised your hand to your heart
looked down holding back tears
and said,
"i don't know if you know this, but zane has a phrase she lives by"
your voice trembling, a pause, "...joy is one's fuel...."

you looked at the team...all of us...
then continued to explain what is meant by "...joy is one's fuel"

the words said simply...eloquently in a manner that all understood
we listened
we were still
some in tears
there was not a person who did not resonate
with the benevolence you spoke of
who did not see in these words the very essence
of having met others who have been the joy...
who have been the fuel in their lives.

...

funny how things change

...

i want you to know
that beyond everything in this here and now
beyond every action that has made little sense to me
this is the image, the memory, the person i carry with me:

the one who put their hand to their heart
the one who spoke quietly...about "joy is one's fuel."

grand central

"lots of peeps"
"yep"
"i looked at all of them"
"all of them?"
"ya. all of them."
"did they look back?"
"they looked at the camera."
"but did they look back?"

in that moment...is it the camera they see and the flash in their brain that some image of oneself will be captured. or is it they are exactly as they are without thought or posturing, without guard or fear?

of the thousands...the only pictures that matter are the naked ones.

chasing the ether and the revolution.

"To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than Death or Night;
To defy Power which seems Omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope, till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates. . ."

"I think that the leaf of a tree, the meanest insect on which we trample, are in themselves arguments more conclusive than any which can be adduced that some vast intellect animates Infinity."

"Man who man would be,
Must rule the empire of himself; in it
Must be supreme, establishing his throne
On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy
Of hopes and fears, being himself alone."

--Shelley

Yehuda Amichai

"...

Once I sat on the steps by agate at David's Tower, I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. "You see that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there's an arch from the Roman period. Just right of his head." "But he's moving, he's moving!"

I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them, "You see that arch from the Roman period? It's not important: but next to it, left and down a bit, there sits a man who's bought fruit and vegetables for his family."

Flanders Fields

arrivals

"Laugh with a vast and inextinguishable laughter"

I'm so incredibly happy for you!

:-)

Facts

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

"I hear"...assertions

"We never make assertions, Miss Taggart, that is the moral crime peculiar to our enemies. We do not tell, we show. We do not claim, we prove."

daffodils...

It's taken some time...but I do understand. The puzzle is answered by Wordsworth.

~~
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.