merry the badass girls :)

Girls should be strong together. 

Strong like steel, 

merry like the tinkling of chimes 

dancing in the wind.

— Kristin Halbrook

:)

instinct

I have been 

and still 

am a seeker, 

but I have ceased to question stars and books; 

I have begun to listen to the teaching 

my blood whispers to me...

― Hermann Hesse

self

I never wish to be easily defined. 

I’d rather float over other people’s minds 

as something strictly fluid and non-perceivable; 

more like a transparent, 

paradoxically iridescent creature 

rather than an actual person...

— Franz Kafka  

Rise to life

Those who cannot live fully 

often become 

destroyers of life.

― Anaïs Nin

The Door

One day you'll see:
you've been knocking on a door
without a house.

You've been waiting, shivering, yelling
words of daring and hope.
One day you'll see:
there is no one on the other side
except as ever, the jubilant ocean
that won't shatter ceramically like a dream
when you and I shatter.

But not yet. Now
you wait outside, watching
the blue arches of mornings
that will break
but are now perfect.

Underneath on tiptoe
pass the faces, speaking to you,
saying 'you', 'you', 'you',
smiling, waving, arriving
in unfailing chronology.

One day you'll doubt your movements,
you will shudder
at the accuracy of your sudden age.

You will ache for slow beauty
to save you from your quick, quick life.
But not yet. Hope
fills the yawn of time.

Blue surrounds you. Now let's say
you see a door and knock,
and wait for someone to hear.


KAPKA KASSABOVA

exploring wrecks

We are, 

I am, 

you are

by cowardice 

or courage

the one who find our way

back to this scene

carrying a knife, a camera

a book of myths

in which

our names do not appear.

ADRIENNE RICH

Boast of Quietness

Writings of light assault the darkness, more prodigious than meteors.
The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.
Sure of my life and death, I observe the ambitious and would like to
understand them.

Their day is greedy as a lariat in the air.
Their night is a rest from the rage within steel, quick to attack.
They speak of humanity.

My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of that same poverty.
They speak of homeland.

My homeland is the rhythm of a guitar, a few portraits, an old sword,
the willow grove's visible prayer as evening falls.
Time is living me.

More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.
They are indispensable, singular, worthy of tomorrow.

My name is someone and anyone.
I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away he doesn't expect to arrive.

― Jorge Luis Borges

are you going to make it?

We are like roses that have never bothered to

bloom when we should have bloomed and

it is as if

the sun has become disgusted with

waiting 

Charles Bukowski

where to?

Earth, earth, 

riding your merry-go-round...

All in all, I'd say, 

the world is strangling.

And I, in my bed each night, 

listen to my twenty shoes

converse about it.

And the moon, 

under its dark hood, 

falls out of the sky each night, 

with its hungry red mouth

to suck at my scars. 

Anne Sexton, As It Was Written

transition

Here I am

scanning the stars

searching for home.

I shall be

 returning quietly

to a lifetime

I've longed for.

ONG SOHUNG, Creator, I am Thou!

-Tarhata, 
July 31, 2013 2:50 am

Ithaca

When you set out for Ithaka

ask that your way be long,

full of adventure, full of instruction...

Have Ithaka always in your mind.

Your arrival there is what you are destined for.

But don't in the least hurry the journey.

Better it last for years,

so that when you reach the island you are old,

rich with all you have gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.

Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.

Without her you would not have set out.

She hasn't anything else to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn't deceived you.

So wise you have become, of such experience,

that already you'll have understood what these Ithakas mean. 

Constantine P. Cavafy

Ephemerae

No one discovers

just where we've been, 

when we're caught up again

into our own sphere (where we must

return, indeed, to evolve our destinies)

--but we have changed, a little. 

Denise Levertov,  Sojourns in the Parallel World

Beannacht

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.


― John O'Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

the unseen

And they tell me that

This life is good

They tell me to live it gently

With fire, and always with hope.

There is wonder here

And there is surprise

In everything the unseen moves.

The ocean is full of songs.

The sky is not an enemy.

Destiny is our friend.

 -- Ben Okri

when you arrived here...

No, they whisper. You own nothing.

You were a visitor, time after time

climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.

We never belonged to you.

You never found us.

It was always the other way round.

-- Margaret Atwood

A Blessing for One Who is Exhausted

You have traveled too fast over false ground;

Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up

To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain

When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,

Taking time to open the well of color

That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone

Until its calmness can claim you.

― John O'Donohue

Desert Places

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces

Between stars—on stars where no human race is.

I have it in me so much nearer home

To scare myself with my own desert places. 

― Robert Frost

thought flood

Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,

The trees and flowers have been strewing their cool odors.

I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.

Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping

I must most perfectly resemble them--

Thoughts gone dim.

It is more natural to me, lying down.

Then the sky and I are in open conversation,

And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:

Then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.

― Sylvia Plath, Collected Poems

...I Am Vertical

(But I would rather be horizontal...)

---

The Mystery Of Man

We come from a distant past that we’ve forgotten

And now we look up and aspire to the stars

We are the mystery that even we can’t decipher

The mystery of man

The story is told in stone and broken arrows

In traces of cities unknown lost in sand

In colours and castle walls silent and unseen statues

The mystery of man

The wind stirs in the trees likes voices in dreams

And then just when it seems we know what it means

Simply its gone

The miracle is the mind asking the questions

Seeking to find itself if it can

Only to see itself endlessly echoed in mirrors

The mystery of man.

---

Karol Wojtyla (the late Pope John Paul II)

finding the words

One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple. 

― Jack Kerouac

The Test

Those who learned to be truly human

found everything in being humble

while those who looked proudly from above

were pushed down the stairs.

A heart that must always feel superior

will one day lose its way.

What should be within leaks out...

A Poem by Yunus Emre (1240-1321)

The Drop that became the Sea, translated by Helminski and Algan (1989)

half light and dusk

[Photograph: T. Estacaan, "Half Light" May 2013]

“Although

the cricket’s song

has no words,

still,

it sounds like sorrow.”

— Ono no Komachi, in The Ink Dark Moon, translated by Jane Hirshfield

Beauty

Photograph: Tarhata Estacaan, "The Real", December 2012

Among the grasses,

An unknown flower

Blooming white.

―Zen Haiku

The Sacred in Everyday Life

Photograph: Tarhata Estacaan "Rustic Kitchen", March 2012

  “Daily”

A poem by Naomi Shihab Nye

These shriveled seeds we plant,
corn kernel, dried bean,
poke into loosened soil,
cover over with measured fingertips

These T-shirts we fold into
perfect white squares

These tortillas we slice and fry to crisp strips
This rich egg scrambled in a gray clay bowl

This bed whose covers I straighten
smoothing edges till blue quilt fits brown blanket
and nothing hangs out

This envelope I address
so the name balances like a cloud
in the center of sky

This page I type and retype
This table I dust till the scarred wood shines
This bundle of clothes I wash and hang and wash again
like flags we share, a country so close
no one needs to name it

The days are nouns: touch them
The hands are churches that worship the world

My Tranquility Base

I have nothing at all -- 

 But this tranquility! 

 This coolness!




 – Issa

What inspires you?

“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; 

don’t try to make it logical; 

don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion.  

Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”  

―Franz Kafka

Choices

“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves.  
The process never ends until we die.  
And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.”  

-Eleanor Roosevelt

Blessing in the Chaos

To all that is chaotic in you,

let there come silence.

Let there be a calming

of the clamoring,

a stilling of the voices that

have laid their claim

on you,

that have made their

home in you,

that go with you

even to the

holy places

but will not

let you rest,

will not let you

hear your life

with wholeness

or feel the grace

that fashioned you.

Let what distracts you

cease.

Let what divides you

cease.

Let there come an end

to what diminishes

and demeans,

and let depart

all that keeps you

in its cage.

Let there be

an opening

into the quiet

that lies beneath

the chaos,

where you find

the peace

you did not think

possible

and see what shimmers

within the storm.

―John O’Donohue

to know me...

Study me as much as you like, you will not know me, 

for I differ in a hundred ways from what you see me to be. 

Put yourself behind my eyes 

and see me as I see myself,

 for I have chosen to dwell in a place you cannot see.

~Rumi

every day... is judgement day

I shall tell you a great secret my friend. 

Do not wait for the last judgement. 

It takes place every day.

- Albert Camus

accepting others

When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.

― Donald Miller

the spirit is ageless

If wrinkles must be written upon our brows,

let them not be written upon the heart.

The spirit should not grow old.

- James A. Garfield

how to feel blessed all the time

When life is sweet, 

say thank you and celebrate. 

And when life is bitter, 

say thank you 

and grow.

 Shauna Niequist

real strength

I've come to know, 

the better I feel about myself, 

the less I feel the need to show off.

~Indigo Girl

On Clarity

For those who confuse you, 

recognize that their confusion is theirs 

and your clarity is yours.

― Barbara Marciniak,
Family of Light: Pleiadian Tales and Lessons in Living

The poet dreams of the mountain

Sometimes I grow weary of the days, with all their fits and starts.
I want to climb some old gray mountains, slowly, taking
The rest of my lifetime to do it, resting often, sleeping
Under the pines or, above them, on the unclothed rocks.

I want to see how many stars are still in the sky
That we have smothered for years now, a century at least.
I want to look back at everything, forgiving it all,
And peaceful, knowing the last thing there is to know.

All that urgency! Not what the earth is about!
How silent the trees, their poetry being of themselves only.
I want to take slow steps, and think appropriate thoughts.
In ten thousand years, maybe, a piece of the mountain will fall.

― Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

to be like water...

Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you.

But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child.

Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.

—Margaret Atwood, from "The Penelopiad."