their prefabricated picture

English and German troops together, Christmas 1914

It was on this day in 1914 that the last known Christmas truce occurred along the Western Front during World War I. In the week leading up to Christmas, soldiers all over the battlefields had been decorating their trenches with candles and makeshift trimmings when groups of German and British soldiers began shouting seasonal greetings and singing songs to each other. On occasion, a soldier or two would even cross the battlefield to take gifts to the enemy. Then, on Christmas Eve, the men of the Western Front put the war on hold and many soldiers from both sides left their trenches to meet in No Man's Land, where they mingled and exchanged tobacco, chocolate, and sometimes even the buttons from their own uniforms as souvenirs. They played games of football, sang carols, and buried fallen comrades together as the unofficial truce lasted through the night.

The most remarkable group is the group of soldiers who, after having met the enemy between the trenches, started thinking about all they had read and heard about them.

For many, the former hatred was vanished. They now recognized the soldiers from the other side of the trenches as human as themselves. They were not mercenaries, no inhuman monsters eager for war, just humans. The stereotypes they knew from the time before the war and before they met their enemies did not fit after meeting their enemies. Not all Germans acted like it was described in the newspaper and were not as arrogant as the German Kaiser. On the other hand not all the English soldiers were mercenaries fighting for material well-being.

These soldiers started to reflect their own experiences and started to compare their experiences with what they knew before about their enemies. The conclusion they made was that their prefabricated picture and the experiences they gained did not fit together. It was hard for the soldiers, faced with the reality of the war, to keep the black and white picture. The reality they saw was a grey picture with blurry boundaries.

with thanks to the heritage of the great war

Hallelujah

there is a brokenness

There is a brokenness out of which comes the unbroken, 

a shatteredness out of which blooms the unshatterable. 

There is a sorrow beyond grief which leads to joy 

and a fragility out of whose depths emerges strength. 

There is a hollow space too vast for words 

through which we pass with each loss, 

out of whose darkness we are sanctioned into being. 

There is a cry deeper than all sound 

whose serrated edges cut the heart as we break open 

to the place inside which is unbreakable and whole, 

while learning to sing. 

~ Rashani

a "real you?"

~ Julian Baggini

what Jesus said

The wind blows where it likes: that is what

Everyone is like who is born from the wind.

Oh now it’s getting serious. We are the ones

Born from the wind that blows along the plains

And over the sea where no one has a home.

And that Upsetting Rabbi, didn't he say:

‘Take nothing with you, no blanket, no bread.

When evening comes, sleep wherever you are.

And if the owners say no, shake out the dust

From your sandals; leave the dust on their doorstep.’

Don’t hope for what will never come. Give up hope,

Dear friends, the joists of life are laid on the winds

~ Robert Bly

from Eating The Honey of Words. New and Selected Poems

don't wander aimlessly

My heart, sit only with those

who know and understand you.

Sit only under a tree

that is full of blossoms.

In the bazaar of herbs and potions

don't wander aimlessly,

find the shop with a potion that is sweet.

If you don't have a measure

people will rob you in no time.

You will take counterfeit coins

thinking they are real.

Don't fill your bowl with food from

every boiling pot you see.

Not every joke is humorous, so don't search

for meaning where there isn't one.

Not every eye can see,

not every sea is full of pearls.

My heart, sing the song of longing

like nightingale.

The sound of your voice casts a spell

on every stone, on every thorn.

First, lay down your head,

then one by one

let go of all distractions.

Embrace the light and let it guide you

beyond the winds of desire.

There you will find a spring and 

nourished by its sweet waters

like a tree you will bear fruit forever.

~ Rumi

Ghazal 563 

from Divan-e Shams, 

translation by Kolin and Mafi

and Professor Arberry

embracing otherness, embracing self,

~ Thandie Newton

casida of the rose

     .

The rose

was not searching for the sunrise:

almost eternal on its branch,

it was searching for something else.

The rose

was not searching for darkness or science:

borderline of flesh and dream,

it was searching for something else.

The rose

was not searching for the rose.

Motionless in the sky

it was searching for something else.

~ Federico Garcia Lorca

translation by Robert Bly

drifting was becoming a passion

.

We were thrilled anew by the expanse of swift water that was the Mississippi.

 Drifting was becoming a passion. Though there was nothing new, 

nothing changed, we looked around each succeeding bend 

with undiminished interest. No prospect was quite like any we had seen before;

 no landing was like another, each afforded new problems handling the boat; 

and when on shore, we climbed the bank or threaded the woods

 with keen expectation - of what, we could not say, but our zest for new shores

 and reaches of river was sharp as ever. The details of drifting and landing,

 of each shore we explored, of towns, boats, people, 

even of the weather, remain vivid in our minds.




~ Harlan Hubbard
from Shantyboat Journal
edited by Don Wallis

compassion

Joan Halifax

memories

~ Maya Beiser

middle of the way

1

I wake in the night,

An old ache in the shoulder blades.

I lie amazed under the trees

That creak a little in the dark,

The giant trees of the world.

I lie on earth the way

Flames lie in the woodpile,

Or as an imprint, in sperm or egg, of what is to be.

I love the earth, and always

In its darkness I am a stranger.

2

6 A.M. Water frozen again. Melted it and made tea. Ate a raw egg and the last orange. Refreshed by a long sleep. the trail practically indistinguishable under 8" of snow. 9:30 A.M. Snow up to my knees in places. Sweat begins freezing under my shirt when I stop to rest. The woods are filled, anyway, with the windy noise of the first streams. 10:30 A.M. the sun at last. The snow starts to melt off the boughs at once, falling with little ticking sounds. Mist clouds are lying in the valleys. 11:45 A.M. Slow, glittering breakers roll in on the beaches ten miles away, very blue and calm. 12 noon. An inexplicable sense of joy, as if some happy news had been transmitted to me directly, by-passing the brain. 2 P.M. From the top of Gauldy I looked back into Hebo valley. Castle Rock sticks into a cloud. A cool breeze comes up from the valley, it is a fresh, earthly wind and tastes of snow and trees. It is not like those transcendental breezes that make the heart ache. It bring happiness. 2:30 P.M. Lost the trail. A woodpecker watches me wade about through the snow trying to locate it. The sun has gone back of the trees. 3:10 P.M. Still hunting for the trail. Getting cold. From an elevation I have an open view to the SE, a world of timberless, white hills, rolling, weirdly wrinkled. Above them a pale half moon. 3:45 P.M. Going on by map and compass. A minute ago a deer fled touching down every fifteen feet or so. 7:30 P.M. Made camp near the heart of Alder Creek. Trampled a bed into the snow and filled it with boughs. Concocted a little fire in the darkness. Ate pork and beans. A slug or two of whiskey burnt my throat. The night very clear. Very cold. That half moon is up there and a lot of stars have come out among the treetops. The fire has fallen to coals.

3

The coals go out,

The last smoke weaves up

Losing itself in the stars.

This is my first night to lie

In the uncreating dark.

In the heart of a man

There sleeps a green worm

That has spun the heart about itself,

And that shall dream itself black wings

One day to break free into the beautiful black sky.

I leave my eyes open,

I lie here and forget our life,

All I see is we float out

Into the emptiness, among the great stars,’

On this little vessel without lights.

I know that I love the day,

The sun on the mountain, the Pacific

Shiny and accomplishing itself in breakers,

But I know I live half alive in the world,

Half my life belongs to the wild darkness.

~ Galway Kinnell

who died today, at home in Sheffield, Vt. at age 87.

be the mystery

Quiet friend who has come so far,

feel how your breathing makes more space around you.

Let this darkness be a bell tower

and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.

Move back and forth into the change.

What is it like, such intensity of pain?

If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,

be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,

the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,

say to the silent earth: I flow.

To the rushing water, speak: I am.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

from Sonnets of Orpheus II, 29

translation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows

to the happy few

Do you know who you are 

O you forever listed

under some other heading

when you are listed at all 

you whose addresses

when you have them

are never sold except

for another reason

something else that is

supposed to identify you 

who carry no card

stating that you are—

what would it say you were

to someone turning it over

looking perhaps for

a date or for

anything to go by 

you with no secret handshake

no proof of membership

no way to prove such a thing

even to yourselves 

you without a word

of explanation

and only yourselves

as evidence

~ W.S. Merwin

 from Collected Poems

photo by ansel adams

imagination, paths of spirit

~ John O'Donohue