The Reset Button

 You know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They're all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed 'em to the fire, they're all just paper. The fire isn't thinking 'Oh, this is Kant,' or 'Oh, this is the Yomiuri evening edition,' or 'Nice tits,' while it burns. To the fire, they're nothing but scraps of paper. It's the exact same thing. Important memories, not-so-important memories, totally useless memories: there's no distinction--they're all just fuel.
~ Murakami, After Dark

"On any given day, something claims our attention [literally "grabs our hearts": kokoro o toraeru] Anything at all, inconsequential things. A rosebud, a misplaced hat, that sweater we liked as a child, an old Gene Pitney record. A parade of trivia with no place to go. Things that bump around in our consciousness for two or three days then go back to wherever they came from... to darkness. We've got all these wells dug in our hearts. While above the wells, birds flit back and forth."

from: http://cuson.deviantart.com/art/siu-kong-in-shopping-st....437855

 Time to press the re-set button

;)

The Mad Jester

Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn.

 Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step.

There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

An you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about."

Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)

;)

Like A Friend

TIME TRAVEL:

Music, the ethereal medium to hold emotions & dream-images:

      A real life tape recorder for memories in color

               LIKE A FRIEND (1998 by PULP)

###

Don't bother saying you're sorry

Why don't you come in

Smoke all my cigarettes again
Every time I get no further

How long has it been?

Come on in now, wipe your feet on my dreams

You take up my time

Like some cheap magazine
When I could have been learning something

Oh well, you know what I mean, oh

I've done this before

And I will do it again

Come on and kill me baby

While you smile like a friend

Oh and I'll come running

Just to do it again

You are the last drink I never should have drunk

You are the body hidden in the trunk

You are the habit I can't seem to kick

You are my secrets on the front page every week

You are the car I never should have bought

You are the dream I never should have caught

You are the cut that makes me hide my face

You are the party that makes me feel my age

Like a car crash I can see but I just can't avoid

Like a plane I've been told I never should board

Like a film that's so bad but I've got to stay till the end

Let me tell you now: it's lucky for you that we're friends

Artist: Pulp Lyrics
Song: Like a Friend Lyrics

A thread of truth

Awoke from the depths of a somewhat dangerous dream to watch the sun-rise today. It's like spring time, in between seasons, alive with the fluttering of wings and tweets of sun birds and sparrows. In these twilight minutes, just before the shape of heat takes on its over-powering form, the breezes are kind and gentle, the dark clouds moving rapidly away revealing a tinge of red behind  big bright chirpy clouds.

"Yesterday is History, Tomorrow a Mystery, 

Today is a Gift, That's why it's called the Present"

~Master Oogway

There is a thread that ties everything together. Watching the pedestrians commuting, anonymous and interchangeable in every way, a  boy would become the older man walking ahead of him; an elderly woman waiting to board the bus was the young lady behind her. The thread is so visible for a second, interweaving reality with a supernatural bond, and yet we hold on so tightly to our own ignorance, trying to break the thread in every way imaginable.

Of a story about the Australian Aborigines told by a guide on a recent trip, when  they have reaped the nourishment from a certain plant, they put up a sign to let others know that the plant has been harvested and will need time to re-grow. The thread is as evident as it is natural. They depended on the land, and thus they respected and cared for it. With all the technology of the modern world, we have not only failed to recognize this thread but worse, alienate ourselves from it.

The shape of heat follows the thread of our actions, "The universe is such a balanced instrument that any act immediately sets corrective forces into action," global warming, oil spills, depleting forests, greed, technology for the sake of consumption proclaimed as the state of advancement. Can't help but feel that we're all living in a lie.

In the valley of the Blue Mountains, the air is fresh, moist, lush and fragrant. There's a tingling of the senses; it makes you feel connected to the land. Not sure how things will balance out in the future. We're beginning to see how fragile our environment is.  Our past informs our future; our present is a gift to the truth. How do we even begin to see, feel, live in a new way?

I think we have lived life many times over and died as many times in a single lifetime. I woke up from the night to the excited fluttering of wing-beats and tweets; the sparrows and sun birds are happy today. I realized I have died in my sleep so that I can live again today.

Green Peace
catmaSutra cat art

;)

CCCC compilation 1

Quirky Pics from
Cute Cats Curated by CatmaSutra

from babykailan's photostream

Zen

Throw yourself into life

Wash your mind

&

open your eyes
;)

 
I TRUST YOU

  Verse
The soul is a newly skinned hide, bloody

and gross. Work on it with manual discipline,

and the bitter tanning acid of grief.

You'll become lovely and strong.

If you can't do this work yourself, don't worry.

You don't have to make a decision, one way or another.

The Friend, who knows a lot more than you do,

will bring difficulties and grief and sickness,

as medicine, as happiness, as the moment

when you're beaten, when you hear Checkmate,

and can finally say with Hallaj's voice,
 I trust you to kill me.

~Rumi

Verse

A silver of mirror shines out

from under a felt covering. Think how

it will be when the whole thing is open

to the air and sunlight! There are

mysteries I'm not telling you.

;)

Freedom of Madness

 Verse

Look for someone else to tend the shop.

I'm out f the image-making business.

Finally I know the freedom

of madness.

~Rumi

The Cat Files

Curious Curatorship of the catmaSutra Cat!

catmaSutra likes this!

Adapted from Andrea Galvani's work

Zen

Alas! the world is full of enormous lights and mysteries,
and man shuts them from himself with one small hand!....

~Baal Shem Tov.

Andrea Galvani'

Andrea Galvani'

It's the facts that lie,

never the stories...

...they become true when

we're interested in the pursuit of truth

;)

from the photo collection of SlyviaLadycat @facebook

Zen

Sense the surrounding space that connects you to everything.

Verse
You could be moving in a circuit without wing,

nourished without eating, sovereign without a throne.
No longer subject to fortune, you could be luck itself,

if you would rise from sleep, leave
the market arguing, and learn that
your own essence is your wealth.

~rumi

;)

No better love

 Verse

No better love than love with no object,

no more satisfying work than work with no purpose,

If you could give up tricks and cleverness,

that would be the cleverest trick!

~adapted from Rumi

"The Explorer"
  New catmaSutra Tile Coaster!

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in 

are different from the things we do.
~ Freya Stark quotes (French adventurer and explorer 1893-1993)

;)

Remote Control

from the photo collection of SlyviaLadycat @facebook

Zen

Recognize your inclinations,

but resist the pull to be controlled by them.

"This is not a Pipe"

catmaSutra painting of the day
 

Verse

Walk to the well.

Turn as the earth and the moon turn,

circling what they love.

Whatever circles comes from the center.

;)

love-wings

from the photo collection of SlyviaLadycat @facebook

Verse

Test your love-wings and make them strong

Forget the idea of religious or physical ladders

Love is the roof, the vital core of the soul,

And of all you see, only love is infinite

~adapted from Rumi

"Serendipity"
 
New catmaSutra Tile Coaster!

Dance, when you're broken open.

Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.

dance in the middle of the fighting.

Dance in your blood.

Dance when you're perfectly free.

;)