zorba and the fortune cookie

"......the highest point man can attain
is not Knowledge,
or Virtue,
or Goodness,
or Victory,
but something even greater,
more heroic and more despairing:
Sacred Awe!

"We are little grubs, Zorba,
minute grubs on the small leaf of a tremendous tree.
The small leaf is the earth.
The other leaves are the stars that you see moving at night.
We make our way on this little leaf examining it anxiously and carefully.
We smell it; it smells good or bad to us.
We taste it and find it eatable.
We beat on it and it cries out like a living thing.

"Some of us --
the more intrepid ones --
reach the edge of the leaf.
From there we stretch out, gazing into chaos.
We tremble.
We guess what a frightening abyss lies beneath us.
In the distance we can hear the noise
of the other leaves of the tremendous tree,
we feel the sap rising from the root of our leaf
and our hearts swell.
Bent thus over the awe-inspiring abyss,
with all our bodies and all our souls,
we tremble with terror.
From that moment begins poetry,
…begins the great danger, Zorba.
Some grow dizzy and delirious, others are afraid;
they try to find an answer to strengthen their hearts,
and they say: 'God'!
Others again, from the edge of the leaf,
look over the precipice calmly and bravely and say:
'I like it.'!"
~ nikos kazanzakis

you are attracted to things
with an exotic flavor
and will travel soon.


for me..
i know i chase virture..goodness..
it is a challenge ~ to be vigilant
and free myself from that chase..
true moksha/liberation is the
absence of anything outside/other than
the is of what is..


prayer
galway kinnell

whatever happens.
whatever what is is is
what i want.
only that. but that.