0 notes

There are no ghosts with HDTV. I’m not sure, in the end, if this is such a good thing. Maybe there is no mystery, no transcendence, without the spur of tedium. Maybe those early, boredom-fueled hours spent tuning into the invisible forces loose in the atmosphere helped prepare me for exposure to the sudden losses of meaning that befall you in adulthood, to the hidden radiations of violence, desire and bad luck that are so difficult to control with our paltry range of dials, to the ghosts of memory and regret that haunt the heart, that flickering idiot box.

0 notes

A Ritual to Read to Each Other

If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,
but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe—
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

William Stafford

0 notes

True perfection seems imperfect, yet it is perfectly itself. True fullness seems empty, yet it is fully present. True straightness seems crooked, true wisdom seems foolish, true art seems artless. The Master allows things to happen. She shapes events as they come. She steps out of the way and lets the Tao speak for itself.