S W O O N D: oh, the places you've gone!

5.17.2008

oh, the places you've gone!

Aren't these swell? I was happy to come upon them. So, what do you think is going on with the itty bitty printed stamps from Kenya? Are they a gift from Kenyan Customs? Maybe they're consolation for the traveler who must inevitably return to her/his residence in [ not-Kenya ] where the closest she/he will come to seeing that kind of natural magnificence is on the itty bitty photo stamps in her/his passport. Or maybe they're just stamps. As in postage.

Off the top, what are the shapes, sizes and ink colors of the stamps in your current and expired passports? Do you have a favorite?

:images global hopkins - click each image to enlarge

the world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.

- w. b. yeats

sounds travel through space long after their wave patterns have ceased to be detectable by the human ear: some cut right through the ionosphere and barrel on out into the cosmic heartland, while others bounce around, eventually being absorbed into the vibratory fields of earthly barriers, but in neither case does the energy succumb; it goes on forever - which is why we, each of us, should take pains to make sweet notes.

- tom robbins

the same dream returned each night until i dared not to go to sleep and grew quite ill. i dreamed i had a child, and even in the dream i saw it was my life, and it was an idiot, and i ran away. but it always crept onto my lap again, clutched at my clothes. until i thought, if i could kiss it, whatever in it was my own, perhaps i could sleep. and i bent to its broken face, and it was horrible . . . but i kissed it. i think one must finally take one's life in one's arms.

- arthur miller, after the fall

YIN AND JUNG

who looks outside, dreams;

who looks inside, awakes.

everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.

when we must deal with problems, we instinctively resist trying the way that leads through obscurity and darkness. we wish to hear only of unequivocal results, and completely forget that these results can only be brought about when we have ventured into and emerged again from the darkness. but to penetrate the darkness we must summon all the powers of enlightenment that consciousness can offer.

- carl jung, the stages of life