Wednesday 4 February 2009

into the rose garden

I have been tagged by Mansuetude, the one who resides at the heart of peace, to post 'a phrase: a few lines from a poem, a song, or an overheard sentence that rings important inside you'. I thank her for that and I will certainly play the game, because one of my souls is a player's one. My choice won't surprise anybody, I have reason to fear, I had already posted these lines before and everybody who has come to know me a little knows that they are crucial to me.

I don't know if I should pass this tag onward... does anybody want to continue playing like this? I'd be happy to read your choice. Still, I will name three people, but they don't have to do anything if they don't feel like it (most probably Kubla won't feel like it, I can't imagine him play): Edith,
Sorlil, Kubla and the Black Sun (b, just because I'd hate to dwell alone on these fertile fields of predictability, I give you the possibility not to surprise anybody with another wonderful Salter quote :-P, and yes, I know I know, again, forgive me for what was once known as my wicked tongue).

After this quite long introduction, let me lead you to the never opened door, into the rose garden, once again.











What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.











Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.


T.S. Eliot, Quartet No. 1, Burnt Norton





15 comments:

  1. Ha! I like how you name three *people* and then 'the black sun'! :-)
    Charming! :-)

    That first photo is mesmerizing.

    So, I still don't get it. How does this game go again? The winner gets a laptop or something?

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  2. thank you b, I am always charming as you know :-)

    gets a laptop?! I see, that's your way of taking your revenge ha.

    (I have just told b in a comment on his blog the whole story with my prize, he asked me if I had got my camera. and no, unfortunately, I didn't. that shop from which I was bound to choose the things - they didn't give me the money, I was just supposed to tell them what I wanted from there - had nothing I could use, and they refused to bring them for me on special order. the only option I had was to buy something else and try to sell it so that I can get the money back and buy the camera. which means that I am now the furious owner of 5 laptops which I don't know when and whether I can sell. it's awful! I had been in such a rage, now I got used to the thought that perhaps I will never have the camera).

    but no, b, I'm afraid no winners or such :-)

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  3. of course I was only joking about your 'revenge', b, in case that was not clear enough :-)

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  4. thanks for asking Roxana. i will respond in a day or two. why should i be angry if you ask? i consider it as a privilege may be. yes, this new photo is so soulful. i like pics of people more than a landscape thing somehow. people are much more confused, they play to the camera,nature remains aloof and indifferent ( aloof would mean it decides to do something!)

    your women are naturally beautiful which in essence means that they are sad. sadness is the only criteria for beauty i think.

    how about giving us some hands, some sad fingers? i like hands, sad hands of beautiful melancholic women, watching the snow fall silently out of their windows or eyes. silent snow with silent fingers, fingers that have traced and touched distances, gone through a distance that their eyes have given them. do you know the Tsvataeva poem on distances?

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  5. 5 laptops, lol! hope you manage to sell them and get your camera.
    and thankyou for tagging me, I have the poem already in mind.

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  6. Imi cer scuze ca scriu asa de greu,zilele astea m-am ocupat mai mult cu pictura,insa am vazut invitatia si imaginile inainte sa imi scrii pe blog, doar ca am vrut sa gasesc ceva care sa impace si jocul si admiratia mea pentru prima imagine care m-a fermecat...

    "From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity."
    Edvard Munch


    Si pentru ca eu ma exprim mai usor prin imagini:-)),m-am gandit sa postez ceva pentru tine(un fel de multumire...ca am unde sa imi scald privirea in fotografii facute cu mult suflet).
    In curand...

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  7. kubla, thank you.
    yes, I know what you mean, I think I like photographing people best. portraits.
    of course I take pictures of everything that tells me something, but I find that people's faces have something special, essential, in a way a myth tells something essential about the human kind and our being in the world.

    that only sad beauty is beauty - that sounds so japanese. kawabata has a novel with this title, Beauty and Sadness.

    I think I have shown some photographs with hands, women hands, you can look in my archive under 'hands'. even some self-portraits with hands, like this one:
    http://bp2.blogger.com/_xW0_fFPi7X8/SD89YAXpLcI/AAAAAAAAAsg/vf0AU0ksyj4/s1600-h/myhand1.jpg
    (I remember you have always tried to guess in which images I appear myself, and if)

    the tsvetaeva poem you had posted not very long ago?

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  8. yes sorlil, now I can laugh too, but I was really mad. let's see what happens.
    thank you for playing :-)

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  9. Edith, nici o problema :-) m-am gandit eu ca pictezi sau esti plecata daca nu ai mai postat asa de multisor.
    multumesc pentru cuvintele calde si pentru acest citat uluitor.

    "From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity."

    si dupa ce citesti asta, nu mai poti decat sa taci... si sa pictezi, intr-adevar.

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  10. and your photos too echo thus in our minds

    the visual can echo too )

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  11. Thank you!

    ah... to be true, i was here the other day and truly, thrown back into myself, silenced ... too much to say. (is there energy on a web page)?

    Thank you for playing. The Eliot poem always reminds me of E. Dickenson's line "tell the truth but tell it slant"; too much life, too much light flung back into our egos causes so much (difficulty).?

    Eliot tells me, freedom in some lays in every direction. Always.
    I love the soulfullness of all your work; to even think of being in Peace, a dream of mine; but ah, even a honeybee would swoon to approach the idea...

    Why is it sometimes, to give something we receive so much more in return from the giving; it happened here with this post. Your soul mirroring out.

    ...
    my camera broke two days ago. You must be so disappointed. Ebay might be of use, though i have no idea, how it works.
    .
    thank you...

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  12. FFF :-)

    (I'd hate to add something else as not to spoil this visual effect :-)

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  13. oh, mansuetude, you humble me... and how true you are, you know, the words that I have received from the others continuing the game, they gave me so much more, like a never-ending play of mirroring and deepening and subtle variations...
    I hope you will get your camera repaired as soon as possible?

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  14. thank you, Rachel. for visiting, too.

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