Domesticity

Source: Favim

Of all modern notions, the worst is this: that domesticity is dull. Inside the home, they say, is dead decorum and routine; outside is adventure and variety. But the truth is that the home is the only place of liberty, the only spot on earth where a man can alter arrangements suddenly, make an experiment or indulge in a whim. The home is not the one tame place in a world of adventure; it is the one wild place in a world of rules and set tasks.

~ G. K. Chesterton

Betrayal

Pic credit: Mary R. Vogt via Morguefile

Betrayal wears a lot of different hats. You don’t have to make a show of it like Brutus did, you don’t have to leave anything visible jutting from the base of your best friend’s spine, and afterward you can stand there straining your ears for hours, but you won’t hear a cock crow either. No, the most insidious betrayals are done merely by leaving the life jacket hanging in your closet while you lie to yourself that it’s probably not the drowning man’s size. That’s how we slide, and while we slide we blame the world’s problems on colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, corporatism, stupid white men, and America, but there’s no need to make a brand name of blame. Individual self-interest: that’s the source of our descent, and it doesn’t start in the boardrooms or the war rooms either. It starts in the home.

~ Steve Toltz

Betrayal

Pic credit: Mary R. Vogt via Morguefile

Betrayal wears a lot of different hats. You don’t have to make a show of it like Brutus did, you don’t have to leave anything visible jutting from the base of your best friend’s spine, and afterward you can stand there straining your ears for hours, but you won’t hear a cock crow either. No, the most insidious betrayals are done merely by leaving the life jacket hanging in your closet while you lie to yourself that it’s probably not the drowning man’s size. That’s how we slide, and while we slide we blame the world’s problems on colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, corporatism, stupid white men, and America, but there’s no need to make a brand name of blame. Individual self-interest: that’s the source of our descent, and it doesn’t start in the boardrooms or the war rooms either. It starts in the home.

~ Steve Toltz

House: Some Instructions

(May Savidge, who spent 23 years single-handedly dismantling her cottage brick by brick and rebuilding it 100 miles away)
Source: MailOnline 

If you have a house

you must think about it all the time  

as you reside in the house so

it must be a home in your mind

you must ask yourself (wherever you are)  

have I closed the front door

and the back door is often forgotten  

not against thieves necessarily

but the wind   oh   if it blows  

either door open   then the heat

the heat you’ve carefully nurtured  

with layers of dry hardwood

and a couple of opposing green  

brought in to slow the fire

as well as the little pilot light  

in the convenient gas backup

all of that care will be mocked because  

you have not kept the house on your mind

but these may actually be among  

the smallest concerns   for instance

the house could be settling   you may  

notice the thin slanting line of light

above the doors   you have to think about that  

luckily you have been paying attention

the house’s dryness can be humidified  

with vaporizers in each room and pots

of water on the woodstove   should you leave  

for the movies after dinner   ask yourself

have I turned down the thermometer

and moved all wood paper away from the stove

the fiery result of excited distraction  

could be too horrible to describe

now we should talk especially to Northerners  

of the freezing of the pipe   this can often

be prevented by pumping water continuously  

through the baseboard heating system

allowing the faucet to drip drip continuously  

day and night   you must think about the drains

separately   in fact you should have established  

their essential contribution to the ordinary

kitchen and toilet life of the house  

digging these drains deep into warm earth

if it hasn’t snowed by mid-December you  

must cover them with hay   sometimes rugs

and blankets have been used   do not be  

troubled by their monetary value

as this is a regionally appreciated emergency  

you may tell your friends to consider

your house as their own   that is  

if they do not wear outdoor shoes

when thumping across the gleam of their poly-

urethaned floors they must bring socks or slippers

to your house as well   you must think  

of your house when you’re in it and

when you’re visiting the superior cabinets  

and closets of others   when you approach

your house in the late afternoon

in any weather   green or white   you will catch

sight first of its new aluminum snow-resistant  

roof and the reflections in the cracked windows

its need in the last twenty-five years for paint  

which has created a lovely design

in russet pink and brown   the colors of un-

intentioned neglect   you must admire the way it does not

(because of someone’s excellent decision

sixty years ago) stand on the high ridge deforming

the green profile of the hill but rests in the modesty  

of late middle age under the brow of the hill with

its back to the dark hemlock forest looking steadily

out for miles toward the cloud refiguring meadows and

mountains of the next state   coming up the road

by foot or auto the house can be addressed personally

House!   in the excitement of work and travel to

other people’s houses with their interesting improvements

we thought of you often and spoke of your coziness

in winter   your courage in wind and fire   your small

airy rooms in humid summer   how you nestle in spring

into the leaves and flowers of the hawthorn and the sage green

leaves of the Russian olive tree   House!   you were not forgotten

~ Grace Paley

House: Some Instructions

(May Savidge, who spent 23 years single-handedly dismantling her cottage brick by brick and rebuilding it 100 miles away)
Source: MailOnline 

If you have a house

you must think about it all the time  

as you reside in the house so

it must be a home in your mind

you must ask yourself (wherever you are)  

have I closed the front door

and the back door is often forgotten  

not against thieves necessarily

but the wind   oh   if it blows  

either door open   then the heat

the heat you’ve carefully nurtured  

with layers of dry hardwood

and a couple of opposing green  

brought in to slow the fire

as well as the little pilot light  

in the convenient gas backup

all of that care will be mocked because  

you have not kept the house on your mind

but these may actually be among  

the smallest concerns   for instance

the house could be settling   you may  

notice the thin slanting line of light

above the doors   you have to think about that  

luckily you have been paying attention

the house’s dryness can be humidified  

with vaporizers in each room and pots

of water on the woodstove   should you leave  

for the movies after dinner   ask yourself

have I turned down the thermometer

and moved all wood paper away from the stove

the fiery result of excited distraction  

could be too horrible to describe

now we should talk especially to Northerners  

of the freezing of the pipe   this can often

be prevented by pumping water continuously  

through the baseboard heating system

allowing the faucet to drip drip continuously  

day and night   you must think about the drains

separately   in fact you should have established  

their essential contribution to the ordinary

kitchen and toilet life of the house  

digging these drains deep into warm earth

if it hasn’t snowed by mid-December you  

must cover them with hay   sometimes rugs

and blankets have been used   do not be  

troubled by their monetary value

as this is a regionally appreciated emergency  

you may tell your friends to consider

your house as their own   that is  

if they do not wear outdoor shoes

when thumping across the gleam of their poly-

urethaned floors they must bring socks or slippers

to your house as well   you must think  

of your house when you’re in it and

when you’re visiting the superior cabinets  

and closets of others   when you approach

your house in the late afternoon

in any weather   green or white   you will catch

sight first of its new aluminum snow-resistant  

roof and the reflections in the cracked windows

its need in the last twenty-five years for paint  

which has created a lovely design

in russet pink and brown   the colors of un-

intentioned neglect   you must admire the way it does not

(because of someone’s excellent decision

sixty years ago) stand on the high ridge deforming

the green profile of the hill but rests in the modesty  

of late middle age under the brow of the hill with

its back to the dark hemlock forest looking steadily

out for miles toward the cloud refiguring meadows and

mountains of the next state   coming up the road

by foot or auto the house can be addressed personally

House!   in the excitement of work and travel to

other people’s houses with their interesting improvements

we thought of you often and spoke of your coziness

in winter   your courage in wind and fire   your small

airy rooms in humid summer   how you nestle in spring

into the leaves and flowers of the hawthorn and the sage green

leaves of the Russian olive tree   House!   you were not forgotten

~ Grace Paley

Quote: Home

Source: Unknown/Favim

Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.

~ Sarah Dessen

Quote: Home

Source: Unknown/Favim

Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.

~ Sarah Dessen

Travelogue for Exiles

Source: Skipwall.com 

Look and remember. Look upon this sky;

Look deep and deep into the sea-clean air,

The unconfined, the terminus of prayer.

Speak now and speak into the hallowed dome.

What do you hear? What does the sky reply?

The heavens are taken: this is not your home.

Look and remember. Look upon this sea;

Look down and down into the tireless tide.

What of a life below, a life inside,

A tomb, a cradle in the curly foam?

The waves arise; sea-wind and sea agree

The waters are taken: this is not your home.

Look and remember. Look upon this land,

Far, far across the factories and the grass.

Surely, there, surely they will let you pass.

Speak then and ask the forest and the loam.

What do you hear? What does the land command?

The earth is taken: this is not your home.

~ Karl Jay Shapiro

Travelogue for Exiles

Source: Skipwall.com 

Look and remember. Look upon this sky;

Look deep and deep into the sea-clean air,

The unconfined, the terminus of prayer.

Speak now and speak into the hallowed dome.

What do you hear? What does the sky reply?

The heavens are taken: this is not your home.

Look and remember. Look upon this sea;

Look down and down into the tireless tide.

What of a life below, a life inside,

A tomb, a cradle in the curly foam?

The waves arise; sea-wind and sea agree

The waters are taken: this is not your home.

Look and remember. Look upon this land,

Far, far across the factories and the grass.

Surely, there, surely they will let you pass.

Speak then and ask the forest and the loam.

What do you hear? What does the land command?

The earth is taken: this is not your home.

~ Karl Jay Shapiro

Sun-corner

Source: Unknown/Favim

At home there's a sun-corner
where spring quietly stirs.
Dripping all day long.
Clear drops from the snow-rim,
they reflect both good and bad
in their brief fall, and are shattered.
The sun is a hot cataract.

In that sun-corner,
where you were born -
it's those drops that should
mirror you, and wet your lips,
pure from the snow-rim and
right into your heart.

It's in that faint smell of
spring moisture you should fall asleep.
That call you should heed.
There, everything would feel right.

It's all moving downhill.
Everything's oozing toward a distant goal,
on its way to the sea.
An unknown sea inside a dream.
All of spring's sorrow is heading there.
All thoughts spiral there
and then disappear.

Your childhood sun-corner is where
you are when the call sounds.

~ Tarjei Vesaas

Sun-corner

Source: Unknown/Favim

At home there's a sun-corner
where spring quietly stirs.
Dripping all day long.
Clear drops from the snow-rim,
they reflect both good and bad
in their brief fall, and are shattered.
The sun is a hot cataract.

In that sun-corner,
where you were born -
it's those drops that should
mirror you, and wet your lips,
pure from the snow-rim and
right into your heart.

It's in that faint smell of
spring moisture you should fall asleep.
That call you should heed.
There, everything would feel right.

It's all moving downhill.
Everything's oozing toward a distant goal,
on its way to the sea.
An unknown sea inside a dream.
All of spring's sorrow is heading there.
All thoughts spiral there
and then disappear.

Your childhood sun-corner is where
you are when the call sounds.

~ Tarjei Vesaas

Hymn to Her

Credit: Patricia Ann McNair

Around the parlor, her five cats
sit calm as Buddhas.  Here she

dwells, at home only at home.
Outside the tedious crumble

of brick walls, she becomes
other.  Outside her windows,

spring is becoming its scruffy
self again: I see the flicker

worrying the spruce bark
for its beetle and the black hole

at the center of the galaxy
in the same light—even though

I am not there to catch either—
as I see her, her cats, and her

universe with a sense
of the solitude of each sight.

~ Ron Houchin

Hymn to Her

Credit: Patricia Ann McNair

Around the parlor, her five cats
sit calm as Buddhas.  Here she

dwells, at home only at home.
Outside the tedious crumble

of brick walls, she becomes
other.  Outside her windows,

spring is becoming its scruffy
self again: I see the flicker

worrying the spruce bark
for its beetle and the black hole

at the center of the galaxy
in the same light—even though

I am not there to catch either—
as I see her, her cats, and her

universe with a sense
of the solitude of each sight.

~ Ron Houchin

Quote on seeking

Credit: AnilTamerYilmazz

The root of all desires is the one desire: to come home, to be at peace. There may be a moment in life when our compensatory activities, the accumulation of money, learning and objects, leaves us feeling deeply apathetic. This can motivate us towards the search for our real nature beyond appearances. We may find ourselves asking, 'Why am I here? What is life? Who am I?' Sooner or later any intelligent person asks these questions. What you are looking for is what you already are, not what you will become. What you already are is the answer and the source of the question. In this lies its power of transformation. It is a present actual fact. Looking to become something is completely conceptual, merely an idea. The seeker will discover that he is what he seeks and that what he seeks is the source of the inquiry.

~ Jean Klein

Quote on seeking

Credit: AnilTamerYilmazz

The root of all desires is the one desire: to come home, to be at peace. There may be a moment in life when our compensatory activities, the accumulation of money, learning and objects, leaves us feeling deeply apathetic. This can motivate us towards the search for our real nature beyond appearances. We may find ourselves asking, 'Why am I here? What is life? Who am I?' Sooner or later any intelligent person asks these questions. What you are looking for is what you already are, not what you will become. What you already are is the answer and the source of the question. In this lies its power of transformation. It is a present actual fact. Looking to become something is completely conceptual, merely an idea. The seeker will discover that he is what he seeks and that what he seeks is the source of the inquiry.

~ Jean Klein

Quote on trees

Photo credit: demondimum from morguefile.com 

For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.
A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.
When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.
So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.

~ Hermann Hesse

Quote on trees

Photo credit: demondimum from morguefile.com 

For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.
A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.
When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.
So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.

~ Hermann Hesse

On the Road Home

It was when I said,

"There is no such thing as the truth,"

That the grapes seemed fatter.

The fox ran out of his hole.

You. . . You said,

"There are many truths,

But they are not parts of a truth."

Then the tree, at night, began to change,

Smoking through green and smoking blue.

We were two figures in a wood.

We said we stood alone.

It was when I said,

"Words are not forms of a single word.

In the sum of the parts, there are only the parts.
The world must be measured by eye";

It was when you said,

"The idols have seen lots of poverty,

Snakes and gold and lice,

But not the truth";

It was at that time, that the silence was largest
And longest, the night was roundest,

The fragments of the autumn warmest,

Closest and strongest.

~ Wallace Stevens

_______________________________________

Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road. ~ Voltaire

On the Road Home

It was when I said,

"There is no such thing as the truth,"

That the grapes seemed fatter.

The fox ran out of his hole.

You. . . You said,

"There are many truths,

But they are not parts of a truth."

Then the tree, at night, began to change,

Smoking through green and smoking blue.

We were two figures in a wood.

We said we stood alone.

It was when I said,

"Words are not forms of a single word.

In the sum of the parts, there are only the parts.
The world must be measured by eye";

It was when you said,

"The idols have seen lots of poverty,

Snakes and gold and lice,

But not the truth";

It was at that time, that the silence was largest
And longest, the night was roundest,

The fragments of the autumn warmest,

Closest and strongest.

~ Wallace Stevens

_______________________________________

Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road. ~ Voltaire