an answer

U. said: try demud/humilty and humour. wow what an answer.

humilty: why do i suppose things should be perfect in my little piece of the universe. Perhaps what went wrong was necessary for something bigger to work and to be 'perfect'
humour: perhaps not take my and others' actions so seriously. Laugh because that's sometimes all the hell we can do.

merci.

love, mad irony and forgiveness

the secret is this: can i forgive myself for that which was not my fault and also for those things that were? i know not if i have the strenght for this or where to start?

extremely wise thought for the day ;)

it comes to me that success and failure can both be hard roads to face in their unique ways. They each have tribulations and as always from the one the other looks so much better. We can steer our sphere (holon) of control to some degree but the seas and channels of much bigger designs often 'destines' our successes and failures. Also what might look like a success or failure from the deck of our little ship often turns out to be otherwise later or elsewhere :)

This reminds me of the chinese story about the farmer whose horse ran away.

One day the farmer's son failed to tether the horse properly and the horse ran away. His neighbours said, 'What bad luck !'
The farmer replied, 'How do you know?'
The next day the horse returned with three other healthy young wild horses. His neighbours said, 'What good luck !'.
'How do you know?', replied the farmer. The following day the farmer's son broke his leg when he fell from one of the new horses. The neighbours said, 'What bad luck !' and again the farmer replied, 'How do you know?'
While the son was incapacitated the Emperor's army passed through the village gathering fit young men for a war that was just beginning far away on the other side of the Empire. All the young men from the village were conscripted except, of course, the farmers son. All the people in the village said: "He is a lucky man, he has still his son with him.
Of course he said as before: 'How do you know?'.

spring is springing into the northern hemisphere

Welcome dear frühling. Your arrival is greeted with naked limbs and happiness by us ground dwellers :)

Some thoughts came swinging through the trees to me while meditating this sunday and i wrote them down thanks to R.:
- meditation is becoming more awake. Relaxed yet very alert. Like the aikido pratitioner, balanced, flowing, ready to answer, to live.
- our eyes and how and where they look may have a greater effect than we realize. Keeping my eyes unfocused on the horison seems to activate awareness.
- meditation is sitting with friends; being with friends, being present, being aware, being there :)
- there are different kinds and rhythms of breathing.

A thought paraphrased from Osho:

[meditation] is not seeking perfection but seeking wholeness

meditation:

c.1225, "discourse on a subject," from L. meditari "to meditate, to think over, consider," from PIE base *med- "to measure, limit, consider, advise" (cf. Gk. medesthai "think about," medon "ruler," L. modus "measure, manner," modestus "moderate," modernus "modern," mederi "to heal," medicus "physician," Skt. midiur "I judge, estimate," Welsh meddwl "mind, thinking," Goth. miton, O.E. metan "to measure"). Meaning "act of meditating, continuous calm thought upon some subject" is from 1390. -from online etymology dictionary

The Sanskrit word dhyana, derived from the verbal root dhyai ("to contemplate, meditate, think"), is the most common designation both for the meditative state of consciousness and the yogic techniques by which it is induced. The Vedanta tradition also employs the terms nididhyasana, which stems from the same verbal root, upasana (literally "dwelling upon"), and bhavana (literally "cultivating"). - Georg Feuerstein

der Vaterland

My first time ever on deutsche soil as i journeyd to the giant Cebit show in the north of germany(Honaver) for a week of work. I must say i find the german people and landscape sehr interesant und freundlich. Wish you could see how sexy i looked in my new intalian suit :)

high on hei

I'm glad to be home again! Thanks to heavy snowfalls today the country outside my windows looks beautiful, wonderful, hermosa, schön, pragtig, lieflik, out of a children's fairytale. i wish i was inside as peaceful as this view outside today.

new day

I'm back in more ways than 1 :) First of all thanks Vica for your nice words(c nov 11 post). I guess faith in life and ourselves makes everything so much brighter and nicer :)

I had 2 interesting insights the last 2 weeks. Both are well 'known', but i felt them i little closer to my own bones.

One. Good and evil are two masks, two siblings who sometimes disown each other. They may be quite different at times but they both belong to a bigger mother wholon. Even though the fashion is to be 'good' these days the higher value is just to BE ... well! - Nietsche's beyong good and evil me thinks.

Two. The other night i saw my anima. Amazing that she is such a driving force in me and yet i barely notice or know her. And the more i do not, the more she acts without my 'guidance'. I 'saw' her in a dream state. This woman that 'i' believe to be the perfect match for the man in me. And i had a thought. For a woman to enter into my life, this Anima of mine has a bigger say than 'i'. My partner and my anima must get along and respect each other unless i want a catfight ;) The same goes for a woman. Her animus must accept the man she is with. I know this all sounds far out, but go to that deep place were all your inborn and learnt desires and expectations about a partner sits, and you will find her or him there. Very much alive and with significant power. The less conscious you are of her the more power she has. Do you see my dear ...

bye 05, zumwohl 06

here's the sun setting on the 31st over cape town and the year 2005. i viewed it from a place aptly named sunset beach :)

The infamous Robben island can be seen on the right.

When i think of the past year a quote by Dickens comes to mind:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity . . . Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

wednesday ... burns like oil with me arriving with my jail face

....
It happens that I am tired of being a man.

Just the same, it would be delicious to scare a notary
With a cut lily
Or knock a nun stone dead with a single blow of an ear.
It would be beautiful to go through the streets
With a green knife shouting until I died of cold.

I do not want to go on being a root in the dark, hesitating,
Stretched out shivering with dreams,
Downward in the wet tripe of the earth,
Soaking it up and thinking and eating every day.
I do not want to be the inheritor of so many misfortunes.
I do not want to continue as a root and as a tomb, as a solitary tumble,
As a cellar full of corpses stiff with cold and dying with pain.
....
my thoughts exactly last night and today. from dear Pablo Neruda's poem Walking Around

driving to work

One of the highlights of my day is driving to work along the coastline, singing, plus a bit of rally driving;)

Take me where the sun is shining
Where the air up in the skies are in my eyes
And I will fly to where
My dreams are hiding somewhere in the sky
For just a while

Bridges all around
Where victories of winners still survive
And evidence of losers on the ground
traces left behind
Not always easy to erase a time
So hard to get it out this frame of mind
And every hour it makes me wonder
Why I should stay

Take me where the sun is shining
Where the air up in the skies are in my eyes
And I will fly to where
My dreams are hiding somewhere in the sky
For just a while

....
- song from Coleske

afrikan rhytms and time qualities

I feel like i've stepped out of a thick slow running river into a warm maelstrom of current. for the first time ever i feel i have come home to an undivided country. for the first time ever i feel like have my birth country has become part of afrika. The temperature is great, freeing the boundaries of the soul. the trees are big and green and i've never seen my parents' garden so lush and beautiful. The people are moving, smiling, interacting with my eyes and emotions, even though i'm in a big city. I cannot say i feel at home but it's defintely an exciting place to be. The people i meet are brimming with life. Sidenote for Jan ;) - On saturday my brother's girlfriend said she was on a kontiki tour in europe in july, and although she only stayed two days in switzerland, she said she experienced the swiss people as the friendliest of all the europeans she came into contact with.

I've had too little sleep and too much alchohol this week but already i feel energy coming back into me. It feels a little like i can see and interact with the matrix :) my eyes and the times has changed. I wish my swiss friends could exprience this, i think they would be pleasantly stunned.
well a gruess to them all.

sala kahle
RP

de-feat-ed?

sad goodbye but i got the nicest socks in the world :) pic to follow

eerste schneeeeeeeee !!!

I was sitting inside, in front of a huge glass window overlooking the street and listening to the reverberating sounds of tibetan bowls when the white Lady decided it's time to strew down on the city the first delicate crystal creatures from her wintery welcome basket.

like humans
snowflakes suddenly streak down in single multitudes
alive they dance on the air
write poetry
then die on the street

------

you know so little of me

I found a nice blog. Makes me miss my friend Karl.

http://cafeintellect.blogspot.com/

Tonight I have to write. I guess it is the time quality of today and the sufi teachings i'm listening to. About god, love,longing, burning, madmen, did i say love :) oh goD, perhaps i have been a sufi all my life without knowing it. except i am only a small sufi, and also one who cannot decide between the love of the empty goD or the feminine embrace of fullness. Ah both, give me both. Except i usually curse one and love the other.

Also tonight I continue writing to her in her absence. She who creates such an unfullfilled longing in me. My fear of 'losing' her strikes me deep in my stomach so that i become sick. It happened again today. Perhaps i have this time taken on more than i can bear. Dear dr. Jung, I am in your country, assist me in facing my shadow and 'finding' myself and so her. May my teacher assist me. I love her.

original face

one day when i was feeling very desperate
i went to you full of my despair
to lie to you, to show you(again) i love you, and to test for hope

and late at night at the end of my utter failure
i placed my hand close to yours
and you, thinking i meant to take it(maybe i did)
took mine and we locked hands
not as lovers, but in desperate consolation
maybe the red wine helped or maybe not
but a peace descended on me
a silence that was not akward but infinite, timeless
we said nothing,
nothing needed to be said
- you were there.
and looked at nothing
nothing else needed to be looked at
- you were there.
then i dissolved
for the first time in my life _i_ did not exist
_i_ wasn't me or even you
there was just, unthinking, unfeeling, unasking, awareness
i don't know what you felt for i had no words
,even to you
perhaps you shared some of it
i wish very much to be with you again and return this
but i have not been able to
it seems that the world of a thousand things
barrs my way.

now

outside my window the moon is giving me a sultry sideways glance. Venus glides shining towards the horizon and i know mars has risen over the zurisee. And I 'see' the deep ones are above as well -pluto, uranus and neptune. Quite unusual. Outside it is huere kalt..cold and the churchbells just rang for sechsi. I feel strange. something is coming :) a ver.

verlange, hart, breek, loser, hotel, s&m

ek is nie heeltemal seker of ek hieroor moet skryf nie. Behalwe dat dit uiters vervelig gaan word vir die leser, huil die leser, mag dit 'n ander ding te weeg bring wat ek regtig nie van hou nie en dit is jammerte(pity). Die arme afrikane, die arme hond, die arme armes, die arme paul...uh Ran. wel asb moet my net nie fokken jammer kry nie, ek doen dit soms genoeg self...

Die dramatiese punt: Daar is 'n rede hoekom ek stadig doodgaan en energie verloor en ek verstaan nie meer hoe presies ek dit heeltyd regkry om soveel te 'verloor' nie, dit is, pogings tot romantiese verhoudings. Wel ek is seker die rasionele onder ons sal aan 'n paar redes kan dink. Maar hier is die armsalige rede:
Ek gaan dood aan verlies van liefde(ja lag, maar julle dag kom dalk nog. wel ek hoop nie so nie). Nie liefde in die algemeen nie, ek voel liefde van my familie en vriende en die natuur en diere en myself. Liefde van 'n vrou, meisie, dame, prinses, soulmate, seksuele-ander-helfe.


die res...

...
I'm aching for you baby
I can't pretend I'm not
I need to see you naked
In your body and your thought
...
There ain't no cure for love
All the rocket ships are climbing through the sky
The holy books are open wide
The doctors working day and night
But they'll never ever find that cure for love
There ain't no drink no drug
(Ah tell them, angels)
There's nothing pure enough to be a cure for love
...
There ain't no cure,
There ain't no cure,
There ain't no cure for love
-Master Cohen

You can call me Ran

At Samhain(All Hallows) we remember and give thanks to all those good souls who have helped us and the world, and who have found peace. In the original celebration of Samhain the guy, representing our old self who has served well, is placed on the bonfire so that it might be consumed in fire, so releasing its light to bless the community and the land. from zoence- the science of life

last night i was rolling around in my thoughts. and the idea came to me to give myself a new name. It's not that i dislike my old name, but i never really felt inspired by it. Half my family and the christian world are called paul. This change feels intuitively right and wasn't consciously planned. A few days ago i suddenly thought of adding my mother's family name to my surname and that's how it started. In the latin world both the father and mother's surnames are used.

Not that names are the most important thing, but if you're going to use one, you might as well like it. like clothes. And it feels kind of exciting to choose my own name this time. I also decided to throw out my middle name(like a unused apendix :) I'll put my old name in its place because it has served me well after all.

Some meanings of Ran:
Japanese - chaos, rebellion, war, upheaval, excess; water lily(symbolizing purity), orchid; a cute sound one makes when happy; the change that results from adding a new element to an existing order
Norse - sea goddess of storms. She collects drowned people in her net.
Hindi - queen.
Tibetan - "time to do" particle, certain time, kind of grass
Anglo Saxon surname - pure, clear.
Hebrew - Happy, song, sing, prayer, chant, ringing cry usually associated with joy
& apparantly a good movie by Akira Kurosawa

Paul:
greek - small, little, humble

Yours newly
Ran-paul
time is now for a small rebellion towards joy & clarity ;)

3 things, no 4

it's tonight now and i feel lonely&close to everything and just a chlini bit stoned . I saw one of the best movies tonight. Chosen by Jan, it was a Japanese film called Nobody knows. But I think a better title would have been everybody knows, but doesn't realize.

And I also listened for a first time, going home through sleeping streets, to a song i've heard a thousand times before. But tonight I listened to it for the first time. Not completely, but it's a start. An amazing song and useless to write about it really. -Ballad of the absent Mare by Leonard Cohen.

Also Mars and da sisters are shining beautifully and close in the midnight sky. Hope you weathered the hurricane Lily. Must've been quite a tempest, although not quite equal to you yet ;)

shlaf guet wêreld.

I want you, I want you, I want you
On a chair with a dead magazine
In a cave at the tip of the lily
In some hallway where love's never been
- from I'm your man, Leonard Cohen

'sisters' haunt my dreams

I remember two strange dreams from last night. In the first one I was with my mother(a younger version) and some other people gathered('kuiering') in a living room. There was also two young woman I liked and felt comfortable with. Then it slowly came out that they were my half-sisters(my mother's children). She had kept this from me and I became very angry. Perhaps i felt they could have looked after me when i was little or just merely that she deprived me of the love of two older sisters. She felt sorry but in a very harsh gesture i pushed her face back with the palm of my hand when she came close and ran away into some empty rooms. They carried the feeling of the rooms from our family house, but now mostly empty and dark. She came looking for me, but hurt and distressed i moved through different rooms and passages avoiding her.

The other dream amazingly carried many of the same themes. I was with a young woman I know. Actually the identities of the sisters was a bit mixed up. She was the younger(not in real life) sister of three. We were walking together and then she took me up and showed me the room where she lives. It didn't seem very nice to me. It was narrow, right on the street, with paper blinds and her neighbour could see right into her rooms. She didn't seem to mind though. We went in and I saw that surprisingly the rooms opened up into much bigger rooms(above?). Here her whole family was gathered(kuiering). I sat down next to her and we touched ofen. I could feel she liked me, but i was in love with her sister. I didn't know what to do. I liked the attention and through her to be with her sister. I didn't want to hurt her but i couldn't mislead her eiher. So i slowly i tried to distance myself. I don't know what happened then but at the end i found a pregnancy kit. I didn't know who it belonged to and really studied it carefully. I sadly thought that it might belong to the sister i love.

reeedd reeeed wiiiiiihhhheeeeiiiin

Today me and Jan went to buy some wine at he m-winekeller. I got slightly drunk and he was more professional and to the point. Anyway isn't wine a lot like everything else. years of history meeting you, falling on your tongue, and you either like it or you don't. Uncharacteristically i also bought some wines that i desired despite the price they extracted. growth or annihilation. wie weet?

answer is 41...and love

Dear Blogb

Once upon a time in Rome, my ex mexican friend Pedro told me he saw the most beautiful woman ever, working in Prague in a fast food restaurant, and he urged me to go see and gave me directions to get there. Well when i got to Prague I tried, sort of, but I couldn't even find the restaurant and I wasn't too bothered about the whole mission.

I must've had a hunch even then that she wasn't in Prague for today I SAW the most beautifull woman in all the universes. And I even spoke to her! but i think i just said some idiotic things and probably forgot to close my mouth too.

I wish i could describe her to you better, but i was a bit overwhelmed keeping all my bodily and mental functions from disintegrating, so sorry, i didn't get a chance to note down everything. But she did have the most beautiful long brown hair, deep deep brown eyes and a smile and aura that could move a thousand matterhorns. I hope i didn't stare too obviously at her mesmerizing breasts cut against her black dress. Oh dear. Perhaps that what all my m&M* is for. To survive an encounter like this. uh uh hu aaaahhhh.....oooohhhhhhmmmmmm...

in other beauty news the trees and leaves they leave around here speak in a colourful new language to me. einfach shön. they get ready for sleep and renewal in the utmost grace and style. zumwohl sturdy trees, you give a lesson in change.

...Only from the heart can you reach the sky,
the rose of glory can only be raised in the heart
-- Rumi

*masturbation & meditation (taken from a J. open source idea)

dreamy night

I had a very funny night last night. In fact considering the events of the day and my angry feelings afterwards, it was very curious that i went to sleep in a happy mood. perhaps the full moon waning had something to do with this? Anyway i had the funniest dream about george wable-u pus. As far as i recall i have never dreamed of a politician before and this was a first. In the dream he turned out to be much shorter than i thought. A comic little man surrounded by his aides and there was an incident with him trying to grope a woman. sehr lustig.