S W O O N D: happy 4705 (or 4706)

2.07.2008

happy 4705 (or 4706)

The rats have it. If you were born in 1900, 1912, 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984 or 1996, you are a rat, my friend (no offense), and this is your year. To learn more about your Chinese astrological sign - and to get a heads up on where the road might take you - clicky here.

(I just realized: My Great-Aunt Irene was born in 1900. She'll be 108 this July. Uh huh. That's not a typo. Aunt Irene gets herself to the beauty parlor every week, and she makes sure to nab a couple of chalupas from the Taco Bell drive-thru on the way. These rats are onto something.)

:national geographic

the world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.

- w. b. yeats

sounds travel through space long after their wave patterns have ceased to be detectable by the human ear: some cut right through the ionosphere and barrel on out into the cosmic heartland, while others bounce around, eventually being absorbed into the vibratory fields of earthly barriers, but in neither case does the energy succumb; it goes on forever - which is why we, each of us, should take pains to make sweet notes.

- tom robbins

the same dream returned each night until i dared not to go to sleep and grew quite ill. i dreamed i had a child, and even in the dream i saw it was my life, and it was an idiot, and i ran away. but it always crept onto my lap again, clutched at my clothes. until i thought, if i could kiss it, whatever in it was my own, perhaps i could sleep. and i bent to its broken face, and it was horrible . . . but i kissed it. i think one must finally take one's life in one's arms.

- arthur miller, after the fall

YIN AND JUNG

who looks outside, dreams;

who looks inside, awakes.

everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.

when we must deal with problems, we instinctively resist trying the way that leads through obscurity and darkness. we wish to hear only of unequivocal results, and completely forget that these results can only be brought about when we have ventured into and emerged again from the darkness. but to penetrate the darkness we must summon all the powers of enlightenment that consciousness can offer.

- carl jung, the stages of life