“Here is our long-forgotten family home.
And, having heard now and then the voice of ancestors calling,
Like a grey little forest bird, from far-away centuries,
I fly to you,…”

…It’s late, I’ve just finished some last minute work and I’m off to Poland on a “roots trip” with (almost) ALL my family very early tomorrow (actually today) [...]

Please listen to Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence (click here) while reading my musing…
I have been thinking on and off about different types of silence…

Have you noticed how not all silence is the same? Or feels the same?
…When silence feels like a wonderful experience; When it is relaxing, scary, sad, traumatic, secretive, joyous…When [...]

I have been thinking about this poem a lot the last few weeks: 
“As I dig for wild orchidsIn the autumn fields.It is the deeply bedded rootthat I desire,Not the flower.”- Izumi Shikibu, Japan (974-1034)

It is summer on this side of the world.
I am in the process of a ’start’ - I have started to [...]

Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah is one of my favourite songs and I just found this live recording of Hallelujah via triple j and couldn’t resist sharing! ENJOY the music (NB: Is a 1hr recording - song is around 45mins-54:19)

 Image via here

Maxim of the ever-wonderful Danish mathematician and poet, the late Piet Hein - author of some of my favourite poems, Grooks. (Gruks).
See below for my two favourites - The Road to Wisdom and T.T.T. - though there are many more I enjoy!
Read some more here. And here. And a bit more about him [...]

This being human is a guest house

Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest [...]

"Human bodies are words, myriads of words…" — Walt Whitman, A Song of The Rolling Earth, Leaves of Grass Book XVI
"I believe humans are made of stories, DNA is story, we carry our ancestors stories inside us, to which we add our own…" — Me
Have you ever read a line in a book or poem and only knowing the author, and [...]

Image: Echo (c) Steve Solinsky

"Life is no straight and easy corridor along
which we travel free and unhampered,

but a maze of passages,
through which we must seek our way,
lost and confused, now and again,

But always, if we have faith,
a door will open for us,

not perhaps one that we ourselves
would ever have thought of,
but one that will ultimately
prove [...]

"You don’t reach Serendip by plotting a course for it.
You have to set out in good faith for elsewhere and lose your bearings serendipitously."
- John Barth, The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor (New York, 1991) (via Richard Boyle’s version of "Three Princes of Serendip")

***

With the help of some sailors and many other [...]

 
You are never too old for Dr. Seuss! So I thought I would share this one - my favourite …
Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know [...]