ARAM

playing in the background is the song

the mysteries of love

Sometimes a wind blows
and you and I float in love
and kiss forever in a darkness
and the mysteries of love
come clear and dance
in light
in you
in me
and show that we are Love
Sometimes a wind blows
and the mysteries of Love
come clear.

from the film "Blue Velvet" by David Lynch

God !

you gave me the childhood
without making me possible to live it through, unharmed.

you gave me parents,
without making me possible to be in their loving protection.

you gave me youthfulness,
without making me possible to have hopes and dreams.

you gave me manhood,
without making me possible to be respected.

you gave me a high intelligence,
without making me possible to become what I wish,

you gave me a heart,
without making me possible to be with the ones I love.

you gave me a strong sense for justice,
without making me possible to have influence.

you gave me life,
without making me possible to feel its sense.

"Love is in the air"

Love is in the air everywhere I look around
love is in the air every sight and every sound
and I don't know if I'm being foolish
don't know if I'm being wise
but it's something that I must believe in
and it's there when I look in your eyes

Love is in the air in the whisper of the trees
love is in the air in the thunder of the sea
and I don't know if I'm just dreaming
don't know if I feel sane
In but it's something that I must believe in
and it's there when you call out my name

Love is in the air love is in the air oh oh oh

Love is in the air in the rising of the sun
love is in the air when the day is nearly done
and I don't know if you're illusion
don't know if I see it through
but you're something that I must believe in
and you're there when I reach out for you

Love is in the air everywhere I look around
love is in the air every sight and every sound
and I don't know if I'm being foolish
don't know if I'm being wise
but it's something that I must believe in
and it's there when I look in your eyes

Love is in the air love is in the air
Love is in the air love is in the air
.............................................

"an awake conscience"

The test of our progress is not whether
we add more to the abundance of those who have much,
it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.

—37th US President, Franklin Deleano Roosevelt

"the difference between my moon and their moon"

their moon: a big, dead stone rotating from afar,
my moon: the living rainbow smiling from the next door.

"taboo"

never strike in,
never spit on,
never look hatefully at the face of living beings !
it is holy.

inspired by Muhammad the prophet

"silence"

better than sovereignty,
better than going to heaven,
better than lordship over all worlds,
is a living, pure heart.

inspired by Buddha

"a piece of heart"

If for an instant God were to forget that I am rag doll and gifted me with a piece of life,
possibly I wouldn't say all that I think,
but rather I would think of all that I say.
I would value things,
not for their worth but for what they mean.
I would sleep little, dream more,
understanding that for each minute we close our eyes we lose sixty seconds of light.
I would walk when others hold back.
I would wake when others sleep.
I would listen when others talk,
and how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream!
If God were to give me a piece of life,
I would dress simply,
throw myself face first into the sun,
baring not only my body but also my soul.
My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hate on ice,
and wait for the sun to show.
Over the stars I would paint with a Van Gogh dream a Benedetti poem,
and a Serrat song would be the serenade I'd offer to the moon.
With my tears I would water roses,
to feel the pain of their thorns,
and the red kiss of their petals.
My God, if I had a piece of life...
I wouldn't let a single day pass without telling the people I love that I love them.
I would convince each woman and each man that they are my favorites,
and I would live in love with love.
I would show men how very wrong they are to think that they cease to be in love when they grow old,
not knowing that they grow old when they cease to love!
To a child I shall give wings,
but I shall let him learn to fly on his own.
I would teach the old that death does not come with old age,
but with forgetting.
So much have I learned from you, oh men...
I have learned that everyone wants to live on the peak of the mountain,
without knowing that real happiness is in how it is scaled.
I have learned that when a newborn child squeezes for the first time with his tiny fist his father's finger,
he has him trapped forever.
I have learned that a man has the right to look down on another only when he has to help the other get to his feet.
From you I have learned so many things,
but in truth they won't be of much use,
for when I keep them within this suitcase,
unhappily shall I be dying.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

"come in, the door is always open."

"Say, `O you servants of Mine who have transgressed against your own selves!
Despair not of God's Mercy:
behold, God forgives all sins -
for verily, He alone is much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace.'"

The Honest Qur'an [39:53]

"to see with the heart"

marcovaldo was a man not made for living in the cities:
the traffic lights, advertisements, show windows, neon signboards and posters,
being for the people's attention,
never catched his sight as if they were only sands in the desert,
but there was not even a leaf of a tree yellowing,
or a feather clung to a gable of a roof which didn't attract his attention;
not a gadfly on the back of a horse, not a small nest of ants in a piece of wood
and not the peel of a fig on the footpath could remain hidden from him...

from "marcovaldo ovvero le stagioni in citta" by italo calvino

"the Ark of love"

the flood is still raging,
and Noah' Ark is still on the way,
escape whoever can,
bring yourselves to the safety of the Ark.

with the multi-cellularity came the death,
with the nervous system the pain,
and with the consciousness ... yearning.

the house is on fire,
many living beings therein,
and I see some people stand around,
teaching beautiful things about the "dancing" fire,
about its usefulness,
its pure nature,
its variety of colors,
its metaphysical aspects,
that the pains - caused by it
can be transcending...

the house is on fire
many living beings therein...
nobody really cares...

here for sugar there's no price, know it !
winter has gone, summer would mesmerize, know it !

white roses, red tulips, and the buds in gardens,
are smiling their loveliest smiles, know it !

the nightingales are singing, praising the summer's glory,
lovers' masterbirds and crowns, know it !

trees are happy, warm in their hearts,
coloured like the cheeks of clowns, know it !

the soul drunken with the wine of the spring,
dancing, to His Majesty flies, know it !

the tulip's blooming red like a wounded heart,
ornamenting garden and lovers' divan , know it !

the winter was wrathful, mad without a mercy,
now the justice in green thrones, know it !

everything's standing, living, growing everywhere,
the heart's feeling, no walls around, free, know it !

for a chalice of wine,
I entered the tavern of heart,
not knowing there would be no way back...

whenever I think of others
love is a decision.

whenever I think of you
love is there,
like the milk in mothers' breasts.

goodbye lions !
see you never wolves !
now I must really go elbows !
bye claws !
just let me alone canine teeth !
never again herds !
I've nothing to say mobs !

hello birds !
hi apples !
how are you wings ?
a lovely day flowers !
what a surprise blue sky !
sincerely yours, eyes !
have fun hands !
wish you the best, hearts !

being a river,
to the ocean.
I'm attached.

being a nightingale in the cage
to a beautiful rose,
I'm attached.

let the whole world know it.

I'm such attached.
to my sweetheart,
I'm attached.

drowned in his blood,
the wounded farhad was still yearning;
they told him the legend of shirin,
and he slept forever.

inspired by rahi-moayeri

the sugar learned the sweetness from you,
the bee learned to love it from me.

the sun learned to warm from you,
the ice learned to melt from me.

the wine learned to enrapture from you,
the drunk learned to fall from me.

the rose learned to radiate love from you,
the butterfly learned to flap longing from me.

the candle learned to flame from you,
the moth learned to burn in it from me.

I don't cut,
I don't break,
I don't burn down.

I dream.

I don't count,
I don't plan.
I don't reason.

I dream.

In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing. An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income. The rest of it went in a doublet of fine cloth and velvet breeches and shoes to match for holidays, while on week-days he made a brave figure in his best homespun. He had in his house a housekeeper past forty, a niece under twenty, and a lad for the field and market-place, who used to saddle the hack as well as handle the bill-hook. The age of this gentleman of ours was bordering on fifty; he was of a hardy habit, spare, gaunt-featured, a very early riser and a great sportsman....

You must know, then, that the above-named gentleman whenever he was at leisure (which was mostly all the year round) gave himself up to reading books of chivalry with such ardour and avidity that he almost entirely neglected the pursuit of his field-sports, and even the management of his property; and to such a pitch did his eagerness and infatuation go that he sold many an acre of tillageland to buy books of chivalry to read, and brought home as many of them as he could get. But of all there were none he liked so well as those of the famous Feliciano de Silva's composition, for their lucidity of style and complicated conceits were as pearls in his sight, particularly when in his reading he came upon courtships and cartels, where he often found passages like "the reason of the unreason with which my reason is afflicted so weakens my reason that with reason I murmur at your beauty;" or again, "the high heavens, that of your divinity divinely fortify you with the stars, render you deserving of the desert your greatness deserves." Over conceits of this sort the poor gentleman lost his wits, and used to lie awake striving to understand them and worm the meaning out of them...

In short, he became so absorbed in his books that he spent his nights from sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn to dark, poring over them; and what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits. His fancy grew full of what he used to read about in his books, enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, wooings, loves, agonies, and all sorts of impossible nonsense; and it so possessed his mind that the whole fabric of invention and fancy he read of was true, that to him no history in the world had more reality in it. He used to say the Cid Ruy Diaz was a very good knight, but that he was not to be compared with the Knight of the Burning Sword who with one back-stroke cut in half two fierce and monstrous giants. He thought more of Bernardo del Carpio because at Roncesvalles he slew Roland in spite of enchantments, availing himself of the artifice of Hercules when he strangled Antaeus the son of Terra in his arms. He approved highly of the giant Morgante, because, although of the giant breed which is always arrogant and ill-conditioned, he alone was affable and well-bred. But above all he admired Reinaldos of Montalban, especially when he saw him sallying forth from his castle and robbing everyone he met, and when beyond the seas he stole that image of Mahomet which, as his history says, was entirely of gold. To have a bout of kicking at that traitor of a Ganelon he would have given his housekeeper, and his niece into the bargain.

In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion that ever madman in this world hit upon, and that was that he fancied it was right and requisite, as well for the support of his own honour as for the service of his country, that he should make a knight-errant of himself, roaming the world over in full armour and on horseback in quest of adventures, and putting in practice himself all that he had read of as being the usual practices of knights-errant; righting every kind of wrong, and exposing himself to peril and danger from which, in the issue, he was to reap eternal renown and fame. Already the poor man saw himself crowned by the might of his arm Emperor of Trebizond at least; and so, led away by the intense enjoyment he found in these pleasant fancies, he set himself forthwith to put his scheme into execution.

He next proceeded to inspect his hack, which, with more quartos than a real and more blemishes than the steed of Gonela, that "tantum pellis et ossa fuit," surpassed in his eyes the Bucephalus of Alexander or the Babieca of the Cid. Four days were spent in thinking what name to give him, because (as he said to himself) it was not right that a horse belonging to a knight so famous, and one with such merits of his own, should be without some distinctive name, and he strove to adapt it so as to indicate what he had been before belonging to a knight-errant, and what he then was; for it was only reasonable that, his master taking a new character, he should take a new name, and that it should be a distinguished and full-sounding one, befitting the new order and calling he was about to follow. And so, after having composed, struck out, rejected, added to, unmade, and remade a multitude of names out of his memory and fancy, he decided upon calling him Rocinante, a name, to his thinking, lofty, sonorous, and significant of his condition as a hack before he became what he now was, the first and foremost of all the hacks in the world.

Having got a name for his horse so much to his taste, he was anxious to get one for himself, and he was eight days more pondering over this point, till at last he made up his mind to call himself "Don Quixote,"... Recollecting, however, that the valiant Amadis was not content to call himself curtly Amadis and nothing more, but added the name of his kingdom and country to make it famous, and called himself Amadis of Gaul, he, like a good knight, resolved to add on the name of his, and to style himself Don Quixote of La Mancha, whereby, he considered, he described accurately his origin and country, and did honour to it in taking his surname from it.

So then, his armour being furbished, his morion turned into a helmet, his hack christened, and he himself confirmed, he came to the conclusion that nothing more was needed now but to look out for a lady to be in love with; for a knight-errant without love was like a tree without leaves or fruit, or a body without a soul. As he said to himself, "If, for my sins, or by my good fortune, I come across some giant hereabouts, a common occurrence with knights-errant, and overthrow him in one onslaught, or cleave him asunder to the waist, or, in short, vanquish and subdue him, will it not be well to have some one I may send him to as a present, that he may come in and fall on his knees before my sweet lady, and in a humble, submissive voice say, 'I am the giant Caraculiambro, lord of the island of Malindrania, vanquished in single combat by the never sufficiently extolled knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, who has commanded me to present myself before your Grace, that your Highness dispose of me at your pleasure'?" Oh, how our good gentleman enjoyed the delivery of this speech, especially when he had thought of some one to call his Lady! There was, so the story goes, in a village near his own a very good-looking farm-girl with whom he had been at one time in love, though, so far as is known, she never knew it nor gave a thought to the matter. Her name was Aldonza Lorenzo, and upon her he thought fit to confer the title of Lady of his Thoughts; and after some search for a name which should not be out of harmony with her own, and should suggest and indicate that of a princess and great lady, he decided upon calling her Dulcinea del Toboso—she being of El Toboso—a name, to his mind, musical, uncommon, and significant, like all those he had already bestowed upon himself and the things belonging to him.

Cervantes: Don Quixote

beside a snowy road,
a broken bough is blooming;
a butterfly flapping,
a white horse smelling a rose,
and a nightingale is singing;
the cold isn't felt at all...

May the poor find wealth,
Those weak with sorrow find joy.
May the forlorn find new hope,
Constant happiness and prosperity.
May the frightened cease to be afraid,
And those bound be free.
May the weak find power,
And may their hearts join in friendship.

May I become at all times, both now and forever
A protector for those without protection
A guide for those have lost their way
A ship for those with oceans to cross
A bridge for those with rivers to cross
A sanctuary for those in danger
A lamp for those without light
A place of refuge for those who lack shelter
And a servant to all in need.

dalai lama

if I'm drunken,
if I'm enraptured,

if I'm so happy,
if I'm unhappy,
if I hope,
if I fear...

it's all because
I feel you
I love you...

I gave up to play games with you
to exploit or instrumentalize you

I feel you,
I love you.

live in safety !
I laid down the arms;
I lost my thorns.

I heard nothing sweeter than the words of love
the only memorial everlasting in this swirling vault.

"the essence of cultures"

"you first !"
a complete teachings;
nothing else is needed.

let us forgive each other,
without conditions.
I swear,
then it's easy to live a happy life together.

this sun,
the earth, the moon and the stars,
rivers, oceans, springs,
mountains, vallies and the vast lands,
gardens, flowers..
cattles and fields
villages and cities...

I love all of them
only because of my being with you, human.
no matter how badly you think of yourself.

and God said:
I like if you love each other,
the earth under the feet of friends,
I make it plentiful,
their cities rich of hope,
and their hearts full of light.

offer me no sacrifices,
only your friendship,
for I like when people love each other.

"the everlasting fire"

there is a song the whole world's singing:
I love you
you love me...

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

william butler yeats

I am a human,
able of feeling shame before God.

we aren't perfect;
let's find reasons to forgive,
instead to retaliate.*

* I have the right to express such demands...
because I have had only difficulties and tragedies
in my life caused by people of all kinds...
in spite of it I feel no resentments or enmity..
only compassion.

******

"weakness"

they had none,
I had one;
I loved.

bertold brecht

(english: habib)

"IN-formation"

there is only the white blackbird,
so white that one can't see it.
and the blackbird is its shadow.

a french mystic

(english: habib)

"two biographies"

caesar came, saw, conquered.
I came, loved, was consumed.

"a flower for all seasons"

and when I say them: love each other honestly,
some behave so
as if they possessed the whole treasuries of heavens
and become mean,
and so out of fear
they really become poor.

but believe me
the more you love
the more richer you become...
it is my cosmic law.

inspired by the honest quran