they were given books to poison their minds, who will teach them how to read the signs

The river is deep and the road is long,
daylight comes and I want to go home.
Awoke this morning
to find my people's tongues were tied
and in my dreams
they were given books to poison their minds.
The river is deep and the mountain high,
how long before the other side.
We are their mortar,
their building bricks and their clay.
Their gold teeth mirror
both our joys and our pain.
The river is deep and the ocean wide,
who will show us how to read the signs.
The earth is our mother
she taught us to embrace the light,
now the lord is master
she suffers an eternal night.
You blocked up my ears,
you plucked out my eyes,
you cut out my tongue,
you fed me with lies,
oh lord.

- Spiritchaser (Dead Can Dance, 1996)

at any given moment, either we heal as a whole or we still suffer as individuals

I don't know what to say, really.
Three minutes till the biggest battle of our professional lives.
All comes down to today.
Either we heal as a team or we're gonna crumble.
Inch by inch, play by play, till we're finished.
We're in hell right now, gentlemen.
Believe me.
And we can stay here, get the shit kicked out of us or we can fight our way back into the light.
We can climb out of hell one inch at a time.
Now, I can't do it for you.
I'm too old.
I look around, I see these young faces, and I think I made every wrong choice a middle-aged man can make.
I pissed away all my money, believe it or not.
I chased off anyone who's ever loved me.
And lately, I can't even stand the face I see in the mirror.
You know, when you get old in life, things get taken from you.
I mean, that's part of life.
But you only learn that when you start losing stuff.
You find out life's this game of inches.
So is football.
Because in either game, life or football the margin for error is so small one-half a step too late or early, and you don't quite make it.
One half-second too slow, too fast, you don't quite catch it.
The inches we need are everywhere around us.
They're in every break of the game, every minute, every second.
On this team, we fight for that inch.
On this team, we tear ourselves and everyone else around us, to pieces for that inch.
We claw with our fingernails for that inch because we know when we add up all those inches that's gonna make the fucking difference between winning and losing!
Between living and dying!
I'll tell you this. In any fight it's the guy who's willing to die who's gonna win that inch.
And I know if I'm gonna have any life anymore it's because I'm still willing to fight and die for that inch.
Because that's what living is!
The six inches in front of your face!
Now, I can't make you do it!
You gotta look at the guy next to you!
Look into his eyes!
I think you're gonna see a guy who'll go that inch with you!
You're gonna see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this team because he knows, when it comes down to it you're gonna do the same for him!
That's a team, gentlemen!
And either we heal now, as a team
..or we will die as individuals.

- Any Given Sunday (1999)

the sunny point of view

A boat adorned and decked sails out for mountains oh
and there begins maneuvers with heavy-to, heavy -ho

Weighs anchor by a pine tree groove and takes abroad
a cargo of fresh mountain air at lee and port

She's made of blackest stone, she's made of flimsy dream
her boatswain is naive, her sailors plot and scheme

She's come from the deep depths of ancient bygone times
and here unloads her troubles and her trembling sighs.

O come my lord and Jesus, I speak and am struck daft
on such o loony vessel on such a crazy craft

We 've sailed for years on end, and still we' ve kept afloat
we 've changed a thousand skippers on this balmy boat

We never paid the slightest heed to cataclysms
but plunged headlong in everything with optimisms

And high up on our lookout mast we keep for sentry one
who ever and on remain our Sun and Sovereign Sun!


- The Crazy Boat (Odysseas Elytis, from "The Sovereign Sun", trans. Kimon Friar)

a way of understanding, forces that shape our lives

It's said that the West was built on legends
and that legends are a way of understanding
things greater than ourselves;
forces that shape our lives,
events that defy explanation,
individuals whose lives soar to the heavens
or fall to the earth.

This is how legends are born.

Ghost Rider (2007)

sooner or later this ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces

We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements -- transportation, communication, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine, education, entertainment, protecting the environment; and even the key democratic institution of voting -- profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things, so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for awhile, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

Zusammenfliessen von Strömen

Unser kreativer Geist erschafft mit unseren Emotionen die Welt in der wir leben aus den potentiellen Welten unserer Wahrnehmung.

- Katerina V. Bruch

not my business, human beings are like that

I'm sorry but I don't want to be an emperor.
That's not my business.
I don't want to rule or conquer anyone.
I should like to help everyone:
Jew, gentile, black man, white.
We all want to help one another.
Human beings are like that.
We want to live by each other's happiness, not misery.
We don't want to hate one another.
In this world, the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful but we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into bloodshed.
We have developed speed but have shut ourselves in.
Machinery has left us in want.
Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness, hard and unkind.
We think too much and feel too little.
More than machinery we need humanity.
More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost...
The aeroplane and radio have brought us closer.
These inventions cry out for the goodness in man, cry out for universal brotherhood, for the unity of us all.
Even now my voice is reaching millions, millions of despairing men, women and children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
To those who can hear me I say, do not despair.
The misery upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress.
The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took will return to the people.
So long as men die liberty will never perish.
Soldiers, don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, regiment your lives, tell you what to think and feel, who drill you, treat you like cattle and use you as cannon fodder.
Don't give yourselves to these men, machine men with machine minds and machine hearts.
You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men!
You have the love of humanity in you.
Don't hate.
Only the unloved and the unnatural hate.
Soldiers, don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty!
St Luke says, "The Kingdom of God is within man."
Not in one man nor a group of men, but in all men.
In you!
You have the power to create machines, the power to create happiness.
You have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

In the name of democracy, let us use that power.
...


- The Great Dictator (1940)

the knowable core

Dr. Zimsky: For here in the great infinite unknowable man can come to know the most important thing of all; himself.
He can understand...

What the fuck am I doing?
(burst of laughter)


- The Core (2003)

Pantopia meets martial arts: The Art of Peace

Y: What could have been the alternative to the slaughter of Ulysses on his return in order to bring back balance?

Mahatma Gandhi: Non-violent refusal to cooperate with injustice is the way to defeat it. You see, we must not hate the British, for they have not taken India from us. We have given it to them.

César E. Chávez: I perfectly agree with Mr. Gandhi. Furthermore non-violence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak. Non-violence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.

Y: It probably takes a lot of conciousness and deep understanding of realities to be able to deal with severe situations.