Summer Nights

What child unable to sleep on a warm summer night hasn't thought he saw Peter Pan's sailing ship in the sky? I will teach you how to see that ship.

~Roberto Cotroneo, When a Child on a Summer Morning

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Edible

Some books should be tasted
some devoured,
but only a few
should be chewed and digested thoroughly.

~Cornelia Funke, Inkheart


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Sometimes, when you fall, you fly.

~Neil Gaiman

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i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

~e.e. cummings


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It always ends. That's what gives it value.

~Neil Gaiman


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Birdwings

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror
up to where you're bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting
                                                                    and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.

-Rumi

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Theatre

For one day, when Miss Ophelia had driven into a snowstorm in her car and was stuck, she suddenly saw a vast shadow looming up in front of her, a shadow much darker than all the rest.

>>Are you  another shadow that nobody wants?<< she asked.

>>Yes,<< said the shadow slowly, >>I think you could say so.<<

>>Do you want to come and stay with me too?<< asked Miss Ophelia.

>>Would you take me in?<< asked the great shadow, coming closer.

>>Well, I do have more than enough shadows already,<< said the little old lady, >>but you must have some place to go.<<

>>Don't you want to know my name first?<< asked the shadow.

>>What is it, then?<<

>>They call me Death.<<

Then there was silence for quite a long time.

>>Will you take me in?<< asked the shadow at last, gently.

>>Yes,<< said Miss Ophelia, >>come along.<<

Then the great, cold shadow wrapped itself around her, and the whole world went dark. But suddenly she felt as if she were opening a brand-new pair of eyes, eyes that were young and clear, not old and short-sighted any more. And she didn't need glasses now to see where she was.

She was standing at the gates of Heaven, and around her stood a throng of beautiful figures in bright clothes, smiling at her.

>>Who are you all?<< asked Miss Ophelia.

>>Don't you know us?<< they said. >>We're all the shadows you took in. We are free now; we needn't wander any more.<<

Then the gates of Heaven opened, and the bright figures went in, taking little old Miss Ophelia with them. They led her to what looked like a wonderful palace, though it was really the finest and most magnificent theatre ever seen.

Above the entrance there were big gold letters, saying:

OPHELIA'S THEATRE OF LIGHT

So ever since, Miss Ophelia's shadows have been acting tales of the fortunes of mankind for the angels in the beautiful language of the poets, for the angels know that language too, and it tells them how wretched yet wonderful, how sad yet comical it is to be human and live on Earth.

Miss Ophelia whispers her actors the words of their parts, in case they get stuck. And some say that the Lord God himself sometimes comes to watch the plays. But nobody knows for sure.

-Michael Ende

Ophelia's Shadow Theatre

Menagerie

My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, 

and I intend to end up there.

-Rumi

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Stars

"And so we came forth, and once again beheld the stars."

~Dante's Inferno

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Hill-haunted

"Hill-haunted, whose vision of the earth was mountainwalled, he saw the golden cities sicken in his eye, the opulent dark splendors turn to dingy grey. His brain was sick with the million pictures his body sickened on a hundred princely wines."

~Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel

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