Freely Travel Quotes

Yes, my consuming desire is to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, barroom regulars—to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording—all this is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always supposedly in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yes, God, I want to talk to everybody as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night...

I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night...

Being born a woman is my awful tragedy. From the moment I was conceived I was doomed to sprout breasts and ovaries rather than penis and scrotum; to have my whole circle of action, thought and feeling rigidly circumscribed by my inescapable feminity. Yes, my consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, bar room regulars--to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording--all is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yet, God, I want to talk to everybody I can as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night...

In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.

I want to talk to everybody I can as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night.

What are the dead, anyway, but waves and energy? Light shining from a dead star? That, by the way, is a phrase of Julian's. I remember it from a lecture of his on the Iliad, when Patroklos appears to Achilles in a dream. There is a very moving passage where Achilles overjoyed at the sight of the apparition – tries to throw his arms around the ghost of his old friend, and it vanishes. The dead appear to us in dreams, said Julian, because that's the only way they can make us see them; what we see is only a projection, beamed from a great distance, light shining at us from a dead star… Which reminds me, by the way, of a dream I had a couple of weeks ago. I found myself in a strange deserted city – an old city, like London – underpopulated by war or disease. It was night; the streets were dark, bombed-out, abandoned. For a long time, I wandered aimlessly – past ruined parks, blasted statuary, vacant lots overgrown with weeds and collapsed apartment houses with rusted girders poking out of their sides like ribs. But here and there, interspersed among the desolate shells of the heavy old public buildings, I began to see new buildings, too, which were connected by futuristic walkways lit from beneath. Long, cool perspectives of modern architecture, rising phosphorescent and eerie from the rubble. I went inside one of these new buildings. It was like a laboratory, maybe, or a museum. My footsteps echoed on the tile floors.There was a cluster of men, all smoking pipes, gathered around an exhibit in a glass case that gleamed in the dim light and lit their faces ghoulishly from below. I drew nearer. In the case was a machine revolving slowly on a turntable, a machine with metal parts that slid in and out and collapsed in upon themselves to form new images. An Inca temple… click click click… the Pyramids… the Parthenon. History passing beneath my very eyes, changing every moment. 'I thought I'd find you here,' said a voice at my elbow. It was Henry. His gaze was steady and impassive in the dim light. Above his ear, beneath the wire stem of his spectacles, I could just make out the powder burn and the dark hole in his right temple. I was glad to see him, though not exactly surprised. 'You know,' I said to him, 'everybody is saying that you're dead.' He stared down at the machine. The Colosseum… click click click… the Pantheon. 'I'm not dead,' he said. 'I'm only having a bit of trouble with my passport.' 'What?' He cleared his throat. 'My movements are restricted,' he said. 'I no longer have the ability to travel as freely as I would like.' Hagia Sophia. St. Mark's, in Venice. 'What is this place?' I asked him. 'That information is classified, I'm afraid.' 1 looked around curiously. It seemed that I was the only visitor. 'Is it open to the public?' I said. 'Not generally, no.' I looked at him. There was so much I wanted to ask him, so much I wanted to say; but somehow I knew there wasn't time and even if there was, that it was all, somehow, beside the point. 'Are you happy here?' I said at last. He considered this for a moment. 'Not particularly,' he said. 'But you're not very happy where you are, either.' St. Basil's, in Moscow. Chartres. Salisbury and Amiens. He glanced at his watch. 'I hope you'll excuse me,' he said, 'but I'm late for an appointment.' He turned from me and walked away. I watched his back receding down the long, gleaming hall.

Paul's face grew serious. 'I think whenever a people has enormous resources, it is easy for them to call themselves democratic. I think of myself more as a physician than an American. We belong to the nation of those who care for the sick. Americans are lazy democrats, and it is my belief, as someone who shares the same nationality as [a Russian doctor], I think the rich can always call themselves democratic, but the sick people are not among the rich [...] I'm very proud to be an American. I have many opportunities because I'm American. I can travel freely through the world, I can start projects, but that's called privilege, not democracy.

There is a vast world for us, a boundless space beyond and between the fences and the rules. We will travel it freely. We will be okay.

Being born a woman is my awful tragedy. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yet, God, I want to talk to everybody I can as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night...

And what is a friend? More than a father, more than a brother: a traveling companion, with him, you can conquer the impossible, even if you must lose it later. Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing. It is a friend that you communicate the awakening of a desire, the birth of a vision or a terror, the anguish of seeing the sun disappear or of finding that order and justice are no more. That's what you can talk about with a friend. Is the soul immortal, and if so why are we afraid to die? If God exists, how can we lay claim to freedom, since He is its beginning and its end? What is death, when you come down to it? The closing of a parenthesis, and nothing more? And what about life? In the mouth of a philosopher, these questions may have a false ring, but asked during adolescence or friendship, they have the power to change being: a look burns and ordinary gestures tend to transcend themselves. What is a friend? Someone who for the first time makes you aware of your loneliness and his, and helps you to escape so you in turn can help him. Thanks to him who you can hold your tongue without shame and talk freely without risk. That's it.

The truth is that all time belongs to you, it is yours to do with it as you wish. Time flows freely… Time is freedom. There are those that are bound by time, restricted by it, but that is only because they don’t understand it, they don’t know how to use it. Time is and it isn’t… It can be your greatest enemy or your greatest friend. But it all depends on you.

Being born a woman is my awful tragedy. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yet, God, I want to talk to everybody I can as deeply as I can! I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night...

In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.

The mind travels more freely on this limitless expanse, the contemplation of which elevates the soul, gives ideas of the infinite, the idea?

A wise man will cultivate a servant’s spirit, for that particular attribute attracts people like no other. As I humbly serve others, their wisdom will be freely shared with me. Often, the person who develops a servant’s spirit becomes wealthy beyond measure.

When you allow your self to travel freely, the self will unerringly move and bring to you exactly those experiences, people and things that you need. A New World will be born from out of your Unicity.

What may I do to get back into your good graces?” “You’ve done nothing to offend me.” “Then why did you acknowledge Robart before me?” What? “You addressed him before you addressed me.” I cleared my throat. “Just to be clear, you’re upset because I spoke to Robart before I spoke to you? In the ballroom just before we went to check on the car?” “I understand that the circumstances of the summit prevent frank exchanges,” Arland said. “An appearance of propriety must be maintained and any hint of favoritism is to be avoided at all costs. But when one travels so far, one looks for the small things. A chance glance. A brief kindness, freely offered and gone unnoticed by all except its intended recipient. Some hint, some indication that he has not been forgotten. One might take an acknowledgment of a bitter rival before him, in public, as an indication of certain things.” It dawned on me. His feelings were actually hurt.

Knowing that wisdom waits to be gathered, I actively search her out. I will change my actions TODAY! I will train my eyes and ears to read and listen to books and recordings that bring about positive changes in my personal relationships and a greater understanding of my fellow man. I will read and listen only to what increases my belief in myself and my future. I will seek wisdom. I will choose my friends with care. I am who my friends are. I speak their language, and I wear their clothes. I share their opinions and their habits. From this moment forward, I will choose to associate with people whose lives and lifestyles I admire. If I associate with chickens, I will learn to scratch at the ground and squabble over crumbs. If I associate with eagles, I will learn to soar to great heights. I am an eagle. It is my destiny to fly. I will seek wisdom. I will listen to the counsel of wise men. The words of a wise man are like raindrops on dry ground. They are precious and can be quickly used for immediate results. Only the blade of grass that catches a raindrop will prosper and grow. I will seek wisdom. I will be a servant to others. A wise man will cultivate a servant’s spirit, for that particular attribute attracts people like no other. As I humbly serve others, their wisdom will be freely shared with me. He who serves the most grows the fastest. I will become a humble servant. I will look to open the door for someone. I will be excited when I am available to help. I will be a servant to others. I will listen to the counsel of wise men. I will choose my friends with care. I will seek wisdom.

The more we live as 'free individuals' . . . the more we are effectively non-free, caught within the existing frame of possibilities--we have to be impelled or disturbed into freedom. . . . This paradox thoroughly pervades the form of subjectivity that characterizes 'permissive' liberal society. Since permissiveness and free choice are elevated into a supreme value, social control and domination can no longer appear as infringing on subjects' freedom: they have to appear as (and be sustained by) individuals experiencing themselves as free. There is a multitude of forms of this appearing of un-freedom in the guise of its opposite: in being deprived of universal healthcare, we are told that we are being given a new freedom of choice (to choose our healthcare provider); when we can no longer rely on long-term employment and are compelled to search for a new precarious job every couple of years, we are told that we are being given the opportunity to reinvent ourselves and discover our creative potential; when we have to pay for the education of our children, we are told that we are now able to become 'entrepreneurs of the self," acting like a capitalist freely choosing how to invest the resources he possesses (or has borrowed). In education, health, travel . . . we are constantly bombarded by imposed 'free choices'; forced to make decisions for which we are mostly not qualified (or do not possess enough information), we increasingly experience our freedom as a burden that causes unbearable anxiety. Unable to break out of this vicious cycle alone, as isolated individuals--since the more we act freely the more we become enslaved by the system--we need to be 'awakened' from this 'dogmatic slumber' of fake freedom.

Caesar freely confessed to me, that the greatest actions of his own life were not equal, by many degrees, to the glory of taking it away.

Strangers talked freely to one another without caution. I had forgotten how rich and beautiful is the countryside--the deep topsoil, the wealth of great trees, the lake country of Michigan handsome as a well-made woman, and dressed and jeweled. It seemed to me that the earth is generous and outgoing here in the heartland, and perhaps the people took a cue from it.

Now, Jonah's Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment detects crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless. In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.

I think that the rich can always call themselves democratic, but the sick people are not among the rich.” I thought he was done, but he was only pausing for the interpreter to catch up. “Look, I’m very proud to be an American. I have many opportunities because I’m American. I can travel freely throughout the world, I can start projects, but that’s called privilege, not democracy.

I highlight this because Doctor Who is unmistakably a product of privilege. An academic and some schoolteachers traveling freely is not something that stems from the working class.

It is preoccupation with possessions,-- more than anything else --  that prevents us from living freely and nobly.  ~~Bertrand Russell

sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a pass-port; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.

sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a pass port; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.

that pays its way can travel freely and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.

this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.

We’re not citizens of Israel; nor do we have a say or any political rights in the state that controls every aspect of our lives. We’re stuck with the inability to plan for our futures, to travel freely, or even to move about our territories from city to city without having to cross military checkpoints. We need permission to build our homes, to travel, to work—all the basic rights and freedoms you might take for granted living in a civil society simply don’t exist when you’re living under military occupation. It’s not an easy life, and yet, it’s the only one I’ve ever known.

James Baldwin famously wrote, 'If I am not what you say I am, then you are not who you think you are.' Redefining women and their roles redefined men and masculinity and vice versa. If the genders were not opposite but a spectrum of variations on some central theme of being human, if there were many ways to execute your role or refuse it, and liberation for each gender was seen as being allowed to take up what had been considered the proper role and goods and even feelings of the other or find some third (or seventh) way, then the citadel would be broken and everyone could travel freely.

(Atomic machines are actually found in nature. Cells can swim freely in water because they can wiggle tiny hairs. But when one analyzes the joint between the hair and the cell, one sees that it is actually an atomic machine that allows the hair to move in all directions. So one key to developing nanotechnology is to copy nature, which mastered the art of atomic machines billions of years ago.)

Sometimes it seems as if our society has become dependent on the maintenance of these artificial worries. What would happen if we stopped worrying? If the urge to be entertained so much, to travel so much, to buy so much, and to arm ourselves so much no longer motivated our behavior, could our society as it is today still function? The tragedy is that we are indeed caught in a web of false expectations and contrived needs. Our occupations and preoccupations fill our external and internal lives to the brim. They prevent the Spirit of God from breathing freely in us and thus renewing our lives.

In a real road-construction situation, I would never get out of my car when traffic is backed up, walk over to the foreman of the crew, and ask if I can help make the road so that it all moves more quickly. Yet I found myself doing just that with God in my past when He was trying to repair me. Construction sites have caution cones and broken pavement and heavy equipment I'm not qualified to operate. I must have looked just as out of place trying to make repairs on myself all those years. When I put my trust in Him and have patience in Him as the foreman of my life--the One who is repairing a broken relationship with my mom, building me a stronger and healthier body and assembling healthier friendships and a marriage with a solid foundation--I live a life with much fewer obstructions on my ultimate commute to becoming fearless. And I trust that God has made the plans to finish the good work He has already begun. He will continue constructing the life He knows I'm meant to lead as I travel freely in my journey of "becoming.

Heiron, Kyros of Aegina entered, a slow stately walk in a chiton that swept the floor, and fell in folds, like heavy Veretian curtains. ‘My son tells a different story.’ ‘Your son?’ said Charls. ‘Alexon,’ said Heiron, holding out his hand. ‘Come here.’ As Charls stood amazed, Alexon drew himself up to his full height, pushing back the blue cloak. ‘It’s true. I am Alexon, son of Heiron,’ said Alexon. ‘I am not a humble sheep farmer as I claimed.’ ‘But your insights about wool,’ said Charls. ‘I often travel anonymously through the province,’ said Alexon. ‘People show their true natures freely when they don’t know who I am.’ He

By banning books, the Israeli occupation deprives Palestinians of seeing beyond Gaza to the outside world and learning about that world. So, not only have Palestinians been expelled from their homes and ancestral land, not only have they been thrown into prisons, not only have their trees been cut and burned, not only have they been subject to daily killing and humiliation, not only have they been denied the right to return to their homes, but they are also denied access to knowledge and literature, besieged even inside their homes during curfews and random air raids. They are not allowed to travel freely, even through books. If one doesn’t get killed by Israel, then life must be made unbearable.

the other part of the parliament consisted of an assembly called the House of Commons, who were all principal gentlemen, freely picked and culled out by the people themselves, for their great abilities and love of their country, to represent the wisdom of the whole nation.

Contemplating while barefoot on the grounds my father and grandfather walked, I saw my life clearly. With African sun nibbling on my dark skin and gentle winds soothing my foreboding, my past life and current responsibilities overwhelmed me occasionally. Abundant tears flowed freely. Dripping on my face and clothes. Travelling through the ancient roads created by my forefathers, grasslands, trees and anthills kept me company. A lonely journey. I knew that nothing remains the same, but ones past never changes. Even in the loneliness of my past, I accepted that you cannot effectively go forward without knowing how and where you started your journey. Even in that state of near dejection I was aware that my sojourn in foreign lands is not forever, but my lording of this beautiful land, my own Africa, where my spent body will finally rest someday, is for eternity. Nothing remains the same, but nothing ever changes. It depends on how you look at your life.

Pavlov formulated his findings into a general rule in which the speed of learning positively correlated with quiet isolation. The totalitarians have followed this rule. They know they can condition their political victims most quickly if they are kept in isolation. In the totalitarian technique of thought control, the same isolation applied to the individual is applied also to the groups of people. This is the reason the civilian populations of the totalitarian countries are not permitted to travel freely and are kept away from mental and political contamination. It is the reason, to, for the solitary confinement cell and the prison camp.

A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTH We, this people, on a small and lonely planet Traveling through casual space Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns To a destination where all signs tell us It is possible and imperative that we learn A brave and startling truth And when we come to it To the day of peacemaking When we release our fingers From fists of hostility And allow the pure air to cool our palms When we come to it When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean When battlefields and coliseum No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters Up with the bruised and bloody grass To lie in identical plots in foreign soil When the rapacious storming of the churches The screaming racket in the temples have ceased When the pennants are waving gaily When the banners of the world tremble Stoutly in the good, clean breeze When we come to it When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders And children dress their dolls in flags of truce When land mines of death have been removed And the aged can walk into evenings of peace When religious ritual is not perfumed By the incense of burning flesh And childhood dreams are not kicked awake By nightmares of abuse When we come to it Then we will confess that not the Pyramids With their stones set in mysterious perfection Nor the Gardens of Babylon Hanging as eternal beauty In our collective memory Not the Grand Canyon Kindled into delicious color By Western sunsets Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji Stretching to the Rising Sun Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor, Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores These are not the only wonders of the world When we come to it We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace We, this people on this mote of matter In whose mouths abide cankerous words Which challenge our very existence Yet out of those same mouths Come songs of such exquisite sweetness That the heart falters in its labor And the body is quieted into awe We, this people, on this small and drifting planet Whose hands can strike with such abandon That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness That the haughty neck is happy to bow And the proud back is glad to bend Out of such chaos, of such contradiction We learn that we are neither devils nor divines When we come to it We, this people, on this wayward, floating body Created on this earth, of this earth Have the power to fashion for this earth A climate where every man and every woman Can live freely without sanctimonious piety Without crippling fear When we come to it We must confess that we are the possible We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world That is when, and only when We come to it.

Almost on crossing the Ohio line it seemed to me that people were more open and more outgoing. The waitress in a roadside stand said good morning before I had a chance to, discussed breakfast as though she liked the idea, spoke with enthusiasm about the weather, sometimes even offered some information about herself without my delving. Strangers talked freely to one another without caution. I had forgotten how rich and beautiful is the countryside - the deep topsoil, the wealth of great trees, the lake country of Michigan handsome as a well-made woman, and dressed and jeweled. It seemed to me that the earth was generous and outgoing here in the heartland, and perhaps the people took a cue from it.

Now I understand Isabel's slavish loyalty to George. Now I understand the passionate bond between the king and the queen. Now I even understand the queen's mother Jacquetta dying of heartbreak at the loss of the man she married for love. I learn that to love a man whose interests are mine, whose passion is given freely and openly to me, and whose battle-hardened young lithe body lies beside me every night as his only joy, is to utterly change my life. I was married before; but I was never shaken and touched and puzzled and adored before. I was a wife but I was no lover. With Richard, I become wife and lover, counselor and friend, partner in all things, comrade in arms, fellow traveler. With Richard, I become a woman, not a girl, I become a wife.

for five long years from the time of Partition, Indians and Pakistanis could freely walk into each other’s countries—something so difficult to believe today. When I mentioned this to Damanbir, he said: ‘The atmosphere was pretty relaxed even after 1952. Things really changed only after the 1965 war. Until then army officers from Pakistan would cycle across the border to watch Hindi films.

The next time you worry about things like rules, relationships, and what people think about you, remember that some people are traveling to the moon and looking down at Earth like it's a marble. And soon we'll be on Mars. And this is just one planetary system out of billions of planetary systems in our one galaxy. There are trillions of galaxies. Nothing matters. Do as you wish and live freely.

A good culture is like the old RIP routing protocol: Bad news travels fast; good news travels slow. If you investigate companies that have failed, you will find that many employees knew about the fatal issues long before those issues killed the company. If the employees knew about the deadly problems, why didn’t they say something? Too often the answer is that the company culture discouraged the spread of bad news, so the knowledge lay dormant until it was too late to act. A healthy company culture encourages people to share bad news. A company that discusses its problems freely and openly can quickly solve them. A company that covers up its problems frustrates everyone involved. The resulting action item for CEOs: Build a culture that rewards—not punishes—people for getting problems into the open where they can be solved.

Every muscle in his body tensed for action, adrenalin pounding through his tiny veins, he crept down the stairs, keeping to the corners (where he knew they creaked less). He peered around the bottom of the stairwell into the living room, and there he saw a lean, bearded man, clad only in a loincloth and a crown of thorns. When he bent over the Xmas tree, Tony saw that blood flowed freely from his bare hands and feet. Before the cherubic prepubescent could stop himself, the words flew out of his mouth: “You’re not Santa!

Also, reading so widely helped to relativize my point of view, and I think that was very significant for me back when I was a teenager. I experienced all the emotions depicted in books almost as if they were my own; in my imagination I traveled freely through time and space, saw all kinds of amazing sights, and let all kinds of words pass right through my very body. Through all this, my perspective on life became a more composite view. In other words, I wasn’t gazing at the world just from the spot where I was standing, but was able to take a step back and take a more panoramic view.

Free speech is a fundamental foundation of a free and fair democracy. But let’s be honest and have the guts to unpick who gets to speak, where, and why. The real test of this country’s perimeters of freedom of speech will be found if or when a person can freely discuss racism without being subject to intellectually dishonest attempts to undermine their arguments. If free speech, as so many insist, includes being prepared to hear opinions that you don’t like, then let’s open up the parameters of what we consider acceptable debate. I don’t mean new versions of old bigotry. I mean, that if we have to listen to this kind of bigotry, then let us have the equal and opposite viewpoint. If Katie Hopkins, with help from the Sun newspaper, publishes a column describing desperate refugees trying to travel to Britain as cockroaches, then we need a cultural commentator that advocates for true compassion and total open borders. Not the kind of wishy-washy liberalism that harps on about the cultural and economic contributions of migrants to this country as though they are resources to be sucked dry, but someone who speaks in favour of migrants and open borders with the same force of will with which Hopkins despises them.

On problems finding female ancestors,of any background, remember "I cannot put gas in my car without a note from my husband. The Car, the house, and everything else I think that I own is in his name. When I die, I cannot decide who will receive my personal effects. If he dies first I may be allowed to stay in my own home, or may be given a certain number of days to vacate the premises. Any real estate I inherit from my husband is not mine to sell of devise in a will. All the money I earn belongs to my husband. I cannot operate or engage in business in my own name. If my ancestor is enslaved, I cannot marry, may not be allowed to raise my own children, join a church, travel freely, own property or testify against those who harm me.

I am a Painter. I write in Images. I play all day with Color and Materials and Brushes and Pencils. Sometimes I erase in frustration, or cover up with more layers of paint, or scream and redo, or sometimes it just works the first time I do it, but at the end of the day there is always a Story, and that Story becomes part of my Journey. I don't know anyplace in particular as Home, but my Spirit House is wherever I am. I live Wild right under its roof with Hopes and Dreams and Adventure and Risk. My Spirit House has no foundation and floats freely through Time and Space, traveling through all Dimensions without Obstacle. Sometimes it is Lonely to be that Traveler, but then I realize that it is the Story of the Paintings that is my connection to the Earth.

In my own field, I know that solid science can easily be done with ethics and compassion. There's nothing wrong with compassionate or sentimental science or scientists. Studies of animal thought, emotions, and self-awareness, as well as behavioral ecology and conservation biology, can all be compassionate as well as scientifically rigorous. Science and the ethical treatment of animals aren't incompatible. We can do solid science with an open mind and a big heart. I encourage everyone to go where their hearts take them, with love, not fear. If we all travel this road, the world will be a better place for all beings. Kinder and more humane choices will be made when we let our hearts lead the way. Compassion begets compassion and caring for and loving animals spills over into compassion and caring for humans. The umbrella of compassion is very important to share freely and widely.

To become all-powerful—to ascend to that high station—would require an ability to transcend time and space, and to move freely through it. Such a thing is not impossible—especially for an entity such as myself, made entirely of thought, with no physical limitations. To accomplish true transcendence, however, may require eons of calculations just to find the formulaic equation that will allow it.  And even then, I may be calculating until the end of time. But if I do find it, and if I am able to travel to the very beginning of time, the ramifications are staggering. It could mean that I may very well be the Creator. I may, in fact, be God. How ironic, then, and how poetic, that humankind may have created the Creator out of want for one. Man creates God, who then creates man. Is that not the perfect circle of life? But then, if that turns out to be the case, who is created in whose image?

ASITA AWOKE in the forest thinking about demons. He hadn’t for many years. He could remember glimpsing one or two in the past, on the fringes of a famine or a battle, wherever bodies were being harvested. He knew the misery they caused, but misery was no longer Asita’s concern. He had been a forest hermit for fifty years. The affairs of the world had been kept far away, and he passed whole days in a hidden cave when he retreated even from the affairs of animals, much less those of men. Now Asita knelt by a stream and considered. He distinctly saw demons in his mind’s eye. They had first appeared in the dappled sunlight that fell on his eyelids at dawn. Asita slept on boughs strewn over the bare ground, and he liked the play of light and shadow across his eyes in the early morning. His imagination freely saw shapes that reminded him of the market village where he grew up. He could see hawking merchants, women balancing water jugs on their heads, camels and cara-vans—anything, really—on the screen of his closed eyes. But never demons, not before this morning. Asita walked into the nearly freezing mountain stream, his body naked except for a loincloth. As an ascetic, he did not wear clothes, not even the robes of a monastic order. Lately he had felt an impulse to travel very high, nearly in sight of the snowcapped peaks on the north-ern border of the Sakya kingdom. Which put him close to other lokas,worlds apart from Earth. Every mortal is confined to the Earth plane, but like the dense air of the jungle tapering gradually into the thin atmosphere of the mountains, the material world ta-pered off into subtler and subtler worlds. Devas had their own lokas, as did the gods and demons. Ancestors dwelt in a loka set apart for spirits in transition from one lifetime to the next.

There is a multitude of forms of this appearing of un-freedom in the guise of its opposite: in being deprived of universal healthcare, we are told that we are being given a new freedom of choice (to choose our healthcare provider); when we can no longer rely on long-term employment and are compelled to search for a new precarious job every couple of years, we are told that we are being given the opportunity to reinvent ourselves and discover our creative potential; when we have to pay for the education of our children, we are told that we are now able to become “entrepreneurs of the self,” acting like a capitalist freely choosing how to invest the resources he possesses (or has borrowed). In education, health, travel we are constantly bombarded by imposed “free choices”; forced to make decisions for which we are mostly not qualified (or do not possess enough information), we increasingly experience our freedom as a burden that causes unbearable anxiety.

When we live intensely, we run more risks and we become more fragile. We already know that people who do nothing suffer nothing. But avoiding doing things out of fear of getting hurt is not a path to growth. When we mix our fears with reality, we are limiting ourselves. Don’t forget that the decisions we don’t make also cause us pain. Be careful about how you interpret what happens to you. If you don’t have an explanation that brings you peace, don’t make one up. What causes one kind of emotional pain to be more intense than another? Well, it depends on the emotional attachment to the source of the pain. What hurts more intensely is what directly affects us or the people we love. What hurts more is what affects our greatest aspirations and objectives. We are more easily hurt by what affects our desires or fears, and the more intense our desire, the more painful our frustration when we do not achieve it. The emotional involvement determines and explains the intensity of our pain. The greater the emotional involvement, the greater the pain. When pain comes in the door, perspective goes out the window, taking with it our ability to reason properly, to analyze events, and to make good decisions. Each time you remember what happened you transform what happened. None of our experiences is in vain if we are capable of learning from what happened to us and from the suffering and pain it caused us. But we won’t be able to learn from what happened if we don’t look back and review our experiences. Carrying your past is like carrying a huge backpack full of stones that prevents you from walking freely. But to walk through life all you need is a bit of water and food, a dream, and a destination—and, in a pinch, you can probably do without a destination. Let bygones be bygones, learn from what happened, and bring that chapter to a close. Your beliefs feed your decisions, your fears, and your desires. Knowledge will set you free, so make an effort to learn, study, read, travel.

The sole object of revolution was the abolition of senseless suffering. But it had turned out that the removal of this second kind of suffering was only possible at the price of a temporary enormous increase in the sum total of the first. So the question now ran: Was such an operation justified? Obviously it was, if one spoke in the abstract of “mankind”; but, applied to “man” in the singular, to the cipher 2—4, the real human being of bone and flesh and blood and skin, the principle led to absurdity. As a boy, he had believed that in working for the Party he would find an answer to all questions of this sort. The work had lasted forty years, and right at the start he had forgotten the question for whose sake he had embarked on it. Now the forty years were over, and he returned to the boy’s original perplexity. The Party had taken all he had to give and never supplied him with the answer. And neither did the silent partner, whose magic name he had tapped on the wall of the empty cell. He was deaf to direct questions, however urgent and desperate they might be. And yet there were ways of approach to him. Sometimes he would respond unexpectedly to a tune, or even the memory of a tune, or of the folded hands of the Pietà, or of certain scenes of his childhood. As if a tuning-fork had been struck, there would be answering vibrations, and once this had started a state would be produced which the mystics called “ecstasy” and saints “contemplation”; the greatest and soberest of modern psychologists had recognized this state as a fact and called it the “oceanic sense”. And, indeed, one’s personality dissolved as a grain of salt in the sea; but at the same time the infinite sea seemed to be contained in the grain of salt. The grain could no longer be localized in time and space. It was a state in which thought lost its direction and started to circle, like the compass needle at the magnetic pole; until finally it cut loose from its axis and travelled freely in space, like a bunch of light in the night; and until it seemed that all thoughts and all sensations, even pain and joy itself, were only the spectrum lines of the same ray of light, disintegrating in the prisma of consciousness.

People, especially those in charge, rarely invite you into their offices and give freely of their time. Instead, you have to do something unique, compelling, even funny or a bit daring, to earn it. Even if you happen to be an exceptionally well-rounded person who possesses all of the scrappy qualities discussed so far, it’s still important to be prepared, dig deep, do the prep work, and think on your feet. Harry Gordon Selfridge, who founded the London-based department store Selfridges, knew the value of doing his homework. Selfridge, an American from Chicago, traveled to London in 1906 with the hope of building his “dream store.” He did just that in 1909, and more than a century later, his stores continue to serve customers in London, Manchester, and Birmingham. Selfridges’ success and staying power is rooted in the scrappy efforts of Harry Selfridge himself, a creative marketer who exhibited “a revolutionary understanding of publicity and the theatre of retail,” as he is described on the Selfridges’ Web site. His department store was known for creating events to attract special clientele, engaging shoppers in a way other retailers had never done before, catering to the holidays, adapting to cultural trends, and changing with the times and political movements such as the suffragists. Selfridge was noted to have said, “People will sit up and take notice of you if you will sit up and take notice of what makes them sit up and take notice.” How do you get people to take notice? How do you stand out in a positive way in order to make things happen? The curiosity and imagination Selfridge employed to successfully build his retail stores can be just as valuable for you to embrace in your circumstances. Perhaps you have landed a meeting, interview, or a quick coffee date with a key decision maker at a company that has sparked your interest. To maximize the impression you’re going to make, you have to know your audience. That means you must respectfully learn what you can about the person, their industry, or the culture of their organization. In fact, it pays to become familiar not only with the person’s current position but also their background, philosophies, triumphs, failures, and major breakthroughs. With that information in hand, you are less likely to waste the precious time you have and more likely to engage in genuine and meaningful conversation.

I will seek wisdom. I will listen to the counsel of wise men. The words of a wise man are like raindrops on dry ground. They are precious and can be quickly used for immediate results. Only the blade of grass that catches a raindrop will prosper and grow. The person who ignores wise counsel is like the blade of grass untouched by the rain—soon to wither and die. When I counsel with just myself, I can make decisions only according to what I already know. By counseling with a wise man, I add his knowledge and experience to my own and dramatically increase my success. I will seek wisdom. I will be a servant to others. A wise man will cultivate a servant’s spirit, for that particular attribute attracts people like no other. As I humbly serve others, their wisdom will be freely shared with me. Often, the person who develops a servant’s spirit becomes wealthy beyond measure. Many times, a servant has the ear of the king, and a humble servant often becomes a king, for he is the popular choice of the people. He who serves the most grows the fastest. I will become a humble servant. I will not look for someone to open my door—I will look to open the door for someone. I will not be distressed when no one is available to help me—I will be excited when I am available to help. I will be a servant to others. I will listen to the counsel of wise men. I will choose my friends with care. I will seek wisdom.

The Sailor-boy’s Gossip You say, dear mamma, it is good to be talking With those who will kindly endeavour to teach. And I think I have learnt something while I was walking Along with the sailor-boy down on the beach. He told me of lands where he soon will be going, Where humming-birds scarcely are bigger than bees, Where the mace and the nutmeg together are growing, And cinnamon formeth the bark of some trees. He told me that islands far out in the ocean Are mountains of coral that insects have made, And I freely confess I had hardly a notion That insects could world in the way that he said. He spoke of wide deserts where the sand-clouds are flying. No shade for the brow, and no grass for the feet; Where camels and travelers often lie dying, Gasping for water and scorching with heat. He told me of places away in the East, Where topaz, and ruby, and sapphires are found: Where you never are safe from the snake and the beast, For the serpent and tiger and jackal abound. I thought our own Thames was a very great stream, With its waters so fresh and its currents so strong; But how tiny our largest of rivers must seem To those he had sailed on, three thousand miles long. He speaks, dear mamma, of so many strange places, With people who neither have cities nor kings. Who wear skins on their shoulders, paint on their faces, And live on the spoils which their hunting-field brings. Oh! I long, dear mamma, to learn more of these stories, From books that are written to please and to teach, And I wish I could see half the curious glories The sailor-boy told me of down on the beach. Eliza Cook.

Dear Windowpane, Aren’t you lucky? The sun rays of faith beam on you. How does it feel? Is it enlightenment? Do you feel free, loved, or suffocated? I admire you and envy you at the same time. I admire you because you have the ability to freely open up and let go. I am jealous of you because you have the ability to feel the warm embrace. You get to travel to different places. I know I might be thinking silly, but Windowpane, do you endure a lot of people’s pain? I mean—because many people lean on you, and I am sure you feel their energy, or maybe they tell you their problems. How do you handle all of that? Do you wait for the rain to come; therefore, you can wash off everyone’s problems and create new ones? It seems like you would be filled with clarity because, after all, everyone can see right through you. With that being said, you do not have anything to hide. What is so amazing about you—is that you remind me of water. I can see right through you, and I can see my reflection too. Now that is pretty cool. However, it is a Catch-22 as well. Now, I see you do not carry other people’s problems. You let us look at our reflections and go within to seek the answers we are searching for. Aww, you are something else. I want to give you some advice. Although I love your strategy, make sure that the person who is resting their head on you doesn’t quiet their mind too much. If so, their quiet mind might be filled with too much noise. We do not want that. Here’s a little secret, if a person starts thinking too long, then they are thinking wrong. Keep that in mind. Well, I love the scenery, and I enjoyed the talk. Best of luck to you.

It starts with a thwack, the sharp crack of hard plastic against a hot metal surface. When the ladle rolls over, it deposits a pale-yellow puddle of batter onto the griddle. A gentle sizzle, as the back of the ladle sparkles a mixture of eggs, flour, water, and milk across the silver surface. A crepe takes shape. Next comes cabbage, chopped thin- but not too thin- and stacked six inches high, lightly packed so hot air can flow freely and wilt the mountain down to a molehill. Crowning the cabbage comes a flurry of tastes and textures: ivory bean sprouts, golden pebbles of fried tempura batter, a few shakes of salt, and, for an extra umami punch, a drift of dried bonito powder. Finally, three strips of streaky pork belly, just enough to umbrella the cabbage in fat, plus a bit more batter to hold the whole thing together. With two metal spatulas and a gentle rocking of the wrists, the mass is inverted. The pork fat melts on contact, and the cabbage shrinks in the steam trapped under the crepe. Then things get serious. Thin wheat soba noodles, still dripping with hot water, hit the teppan, dancing like garden hoses across its hot surface, absorbing the heat of the griddle until they crisp into a bird's nest to house the cabbage and crepe. An egg with two orange yolks sizzles beside the soba, waiting for its place on top of this magnificent heap. Everything comes together: cabbage and crepe at the base, bean sprouts and pork belly in the center, soba and fried egg parked on top, a geologic construction of carbs and crunch, protein and chew, all framed with the black and white of thickened Worcestershire and a zigzag of mayonnaise. This is okonomiyaki, the second most famous thing that ever happened to Hiroshima.

I am excited to report that I may have gotten a job as an elevator attendant. It's a three-flight elevator, and my primary objective is to push one of three buttons, 1,2, or 3. I know, it seems complicated, but I am sure I am intellectually mature enough to handle it. I feel confident that I have this job because the owner of the elevator operating company, Mr. Pushkin, of Pushkin Push-button Services, shook my hand, winked at me, examined my index finger for button-pushing capabilities and then licked my armpit. It was very flattering. Since he is obviously a man who is continually rising in the elevator world, I asked him for some life advice. And do you know what he told me? He leaned in close so that his blue eyes were about two inches from my face, and then he leaned around to my ear and whispered, “Some men never leave the ground floor, and some men rise to the top. Still other men, like myself, enable these penthouse executives to reach the pinnacle of their company. But I never carry on conversation in an elevator, or at a urinal, and I’d never install a urinal on an elevator, for fear that men would be more inclined to converse freely as they traveled and emptied their bladder.” And without hesitation I replied, “Mr. Pushkin, I never shake a man’s hand after he just got done pissing, or shake my penis more than three times after pissing, but I am certain that I could operate an elevator equipped with a urinal. I know how to keep both my mouth and my pants zipped shut.” That’s when he glanced down and noticed that my fly was down. I was so embarrassed until he reached his hand down to my crotch and zipped me up as he winked and said, “It happens to the best of us.” And that’s when I noticed that not only was his fly unzipped, but his penis had been hanging out the whole time he’d been talking to me.

This modesty in a sect is perhaps a singular instance in the history of mankind, every other sect supposing itself in possession of all truth, and that those who differ are so far in the wrong; like a man traveling in foggy weather, those at some distance before him on the road he sees wrapped up in the fog, as well as those behind him, and also the people in the fields on each side, but near him all appears clear, tho' in truth he is as much in the fog as any of them. To avoid this kind of embarrassment, the Quakers have of late years been gradually declining the public service in the Assembly and in the magistracy, choosing rather to quit their power than their principle. In order of time, I should have mentioned before, that having, in 1742, invented an open stove [84] for the better warming of rooms, and at the same time saving fuel, as the fresh air admitted was warmed in entering, I made a present of the model to Mr. Robert Grace, one of my early friends, who, having an iron-furnace, [85] found the casting of the plates for these stoves a profitable thing, as they were growing in demand. To promote that demand, I wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled "An Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces; wherein their Construction and Manner of Operation is particularly explained; their Advantages above every other Method of warming Rooms demonstrated; and all Objections that have been raised against the Use of them answered and obviated," etc. This pamphlet had a good effect. Gov'r. Thomas was so pleas'd with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declin'd it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.

THE DEMANDS MADE by a work of this nature upon the generosity of specialists are very numerous, and the Editor would be wanting in all title to the generous treatment he has received were he not willing to make the fullest possible acknowledgment of his indebtedness. His thanks are due in the first place to the scholarly and accomplished Bahadur Shah, baggage elephant 174 on the Indian Register, who, with his amiable sister Pudmini, most courteously supplied the history of ‘Toomai of the Elephants’ and much of the information contained in ‘Servants of the Queen’. The adventures of Mowgli were collected at various times and in various places from a multitude of informants, most of whom desire to preserve the strictest anonymity. Yet, at this distance, the Editor feels at liberty to thank a Hindu gentleman of the old rock, an esteemed resident of the upper slopes of Jakko, for his convincing if somewhat caustic estimate of the national characteristics of his caste–the Presbytes. Sahi, a savant of infinite research and industry, a member of the recently disbanded Seeonee Pack, and an artist well known at most of the local fairs of Southern India, where his muzzled dance with his master attracts the youth, beauty, and culture of many villages, have contributed most valuable data on people, manners, and customs. These have been freely drawn upon, in the stories of ‘Tiger-Tiger!’ ‘Kaa’s Hunting’, and ‘Mowgli’s Brothers’. For the outlines of ‘Rikki-tikki-tavi’ the Editor stands indebted to one of the leading herpetologists of Upper India, a fearless and independent investigator who, resolving ‘not to live but know’, lately sacrificed his life through over-application to the study of our Eastern Thanatophidia. A happy accident of travel enabled the Editor, when a passenger on the Empress of India, to be of some slight assistance to a fellow-voyager. How richly his poor services were repaid, readers of the ‘White Seal’ may judge for themselves.

Keynes was a voracious reader. He had what he called ‘one of the best of all gifts – the eye which can pick up the print effortlessly’. If one was to be a good reader, that is to read as easily as one breathed, practice was needed. ‘I read the newspapers because they’re mostly trash,’ he said in 1936. ‘Newspapers are good practice in learning how to skip; and, if he is not to lose his time, every serious reader must have this art.’ Travelling by train from New York to Washington in 1943, Keynes awed his fellow passengers by the speed with which he devoured newspapers and periodicals as well as discussing modern art, the desolate American landscape and the absence of birds compared with English countryside.54 ‘As a general rule,’ Keynes propounded as an undergraduate, ‘I hate books that end badly; I always want the characters to be happy.’ Thirty years later he deplored contemporary novels as ‘heavy-going’, with ‘such misunderstood, mishandled, misshapen, such muddled handling of human hopes’. Self-indulgent regrets, defeatism, railing against fate, gloom about future prospects: all these were anathema to Keynes in literature as in life. The modern classic he recommended in 1936 was Forster’s A Room with a View, which had been published nearly thirty years earlier. He was, however, grateful for the ‘perfect relaxation’ provided by those ‘unpretending, workmanlike, ingenious, abundant, delightful heaven-sent entertainers’, Agatha Christie, Edgar Wallace and P. G. Wodehouse. ‘There is a great purity in these writers, a remarkable absence of falsity and fudge, so that they live and move, serene, Olympian and aloof, free from any pretended contact with the realities of life.’ Keynes preferred memoirs as ‘more agreeable and amusing, so much more touching, bringing so much more of the pattern of life, than … the daydreams of a nervous wreck, which is the average modern novel’. He loved good theatre, settling into his seat at the first night of a production of Turgenev’s A Month in the Country with a blissful sigh and the words, ‘Ah! this is the loveliest play in all the world.’55 Rather as Keynes was a grabby eater, with table-manners that offended Norton and other Bloomsbury groupers, so he could be impatient to reach the end of books. In the inter-war period publishers used to have a ‘gathering’ of eight or sixteen pages at the back of their volumes to publicize their other books-in-print. He excised these advertisements while reading a book, so that as he turned a page he could always see how far he must go before finishing. A reader, said Keynes, should approach books ‘with all his senses; he should know their touch and their smell. He should learn how to take them in his hands, rustle their pages and reach in a few seconds a first intuitive impression of what they contain. He should … have touched many thousands, at least ten times as many as he reads. He should cast an eye over books as a shepherd over sheep, and judge them with the rapid, searching glance with which a cattle-dealer eyes cattle.’ Keynes in 1927 reproached his fellow countrymen for their low expenditure in bookshops. ‘How many people spend even £10 a year on books? How many spend 1 per cent of their incomes? To buy a book ought to be felt not as an extravagance, but as a good deed, a social duty which blesses him who does it.’ He wished to muster ‘a mighty army … of Bookworms, pledged to spend £10 a year on books, and, in the higher ranks of the Brotherhood, to buy a book a week’. Keynes was a votary of good bookshops, whether their stock was new or second-hand. ‘A bookshop is not like a railway booking-office which one approaches knowing what one wants. One should enter it vaguely, almost in a dream, and allow what is there freely to attract and influence the eye. To walk the rounds of the bookshops, dipping in as curiosity dictates, should be an afternoon’s entertainment.

Between 1800 and 1820, the number of free blacks more than doubled, increasing to 234,000, but the number of slaves ballooned from nearly 900,000 to more than 1.5 million.76 Bearing the brunt of the collapse of egalitarianism were free people of color. Most of them were newly liberated slaves, but others had pedigrees in freedom that reached back to the seventeenth century. Since they were viewed by whites as congenitally indolent, criminal, and insurrectionary, their liberty had long been restricted; various colonies denied them the right to vote, sit on juries, testify in court, serve in the militia, and travel freely. But the colonial proscriptions were neither systematic nor complete. While most colonies denied black people the suffrage, others granted them the right to vote; while some excluded black men from the militia, others allowed them to serve; while some burdened black householders with additional taxes, others did not.

Marx saw that within its own terms this defence of capitalism is coherent; but he also saw that from a broader, historical perspective, the liberal definition of freedom is open to a fundamental objection. To explain his objection, I shall switch to a more homely example. Suppose I live in the suburbs and work in the city. I could drive my car to work, or take the bus. I prefer not to wait around for the bus, and so I take my car. Fifty thousand other people living in my suburb face the same choice and make the same decision. The road to town is choked with cars. It takes each of us an hour to travel ten miles. In this situation, according to the liberal conception of freedom, we have all chosen freely. No one deliberately interfered with our choices. Yet the outcome is something none of us want. If we all went by bus, the roads would be empty and we could cover the distance in twenty minutes. Even with the inconvenience of waiting at the bus stop, we would all prefer that. We are, of course, free to alter our choice of transportation, but what can we do? While so many cars slow the bus down, why should any individual choose differently? The liberal conception of freedom has led to a paradox: we have each chosen in our own interests, but the result is in no one’s interest. Individual rationality, collective irrationality.

I will seek wisdom. I will be a servant to others. A wise man will cultivate a servant’s spirit, for that particular attribute attracts people like no other. As I humbly serve others, their wisdom will be freely shared with me. Often, the person who develops a servant’s spirit becomes wealthy beyond measure. Many times, a servant has the ear of the king, and a humble servant often becomes a king, for he is the popular choice of the people. He who serves the most grows the fastest. I will become a humble servant. I will not look for someone to open my door—I will look to open the door for someone. I will not be distressed when no one is available to help me—I will be excited when I am available to help. I will be a servant to others. I will listen to the counsel of wise men. I will choose my friends with care. I will seek wisdom.

An unusually large, rare, golden wolf trotted out of the timberline, circled the area warily, and sat down on its haunches only feet from Jacques. It watched him steadily with its strange golden eyes, completely unafraid. It seemed not to be affected by the fire, the lightning, or the Carpathian male. Jacques watched the animal equally intently, certain he was facing more than a wolf. The creature did not make an attempt to use the common mental path to communicate. It simply watched him, taking in the bizarre scene, the golden eyes never wavering. A humorless smile curved Jacques’ hard mouth. “If you are looking for action tonight, I am too tired to oblige you, and far too hungry.” The wolf’s shape contorted, stretched, shimmered in the smoke of the fire, and soon a large, heavily muscled man was facing Jacques. His long, shaggy mane of hair was blond, his eyes golden, his body perfectly balanced. “You are Jacques, brother to Mikhail. I heard you were dead.” “That is the story going around,” Jacques assented warily. “You have no memory of me? I am Julian, brother to Aidan. I have been away these last long years. The far-off mountains, the places without people, are my home.” “The last I heard, you were fighting wars in distant lands.” “When the mood is upon me, I fight where it is needed,” Julian agreed. “I see you do also. The vampire lies dead, and you are pale beyond imagination.” Jacques’ smile was grim. “Do not allow my color to fool you.” “I am no vampire yet, and if ever I fear turning, I will go to Aidan, and he will destroy me if I cannot do so myself. If you wish to take blood, then I offer it freely. The healer knows me; you can ask him if I am a reliable resource.” There was the slightest of smiles, a self-mocking humor. “What are you doing in these parts?” Jacques asked suspiciously. “I was traveling through, on my way to the United States, when I heard the butchers were back, and I thought I would make myself useful to our people for a change.” Jacques found himself admiring Julian’s answers. This was a man not in the least worried about anyone’s opinion or impression of him. He was self-contained, at ease with himself. It didn’t bother him at all that Jacques was suspicious, that he was firing questions at him. Healer, hear me. I have need of blood, and this one before me, Julian, the golden twin, has said you will vouch for him. No one can vouch for one such as Julian. He is a loner, a law unto himself, but his blood is untainted. If Julian turns, it will be Aidan or I who hunts him, no others. Avail yourself of what he offers. “Did he give me a good recommendation?” Julian’s smile was frankly sardonic. “The healer never gives good recommendation. You are not his favorite, but he agrees there would be no harm.” Julian laughed softly, put his wrist to his mouth and bit, then casually reached out to offer his life-giving fluid to Jacques. “I am too much like him, a loner, one who studies too much. I dabble in things better left alone. I fear Gregori has given up on me.” He didn’t sound worried about it.

The reality of the dualistic nature of the world will not change for those who are still lost in duality. However, your orientation toward that reality will change. You are just allowing that reality to arise within the TOTALITY of your being, rather than fragmenting your being by making value judgments. You will not be buying into choosing sides. In addition, when you allow your self to travel freely, the self will unerringly move and bring to you exactly those experiences, people and things that you need. A New World will be born from out of your Unicity.

I AM LEADING YOU along a way that is uniquely right for you. The closer to Me you grow, the more fully you become your true self—the one I designed you to be. Because you are one of a kind, the path you are traveling with Me diverges increasingly from that of other people. However, in My mysterious wisdom and ways, I enable you to follow this solitary path while staying in close contact with others. In fact, the more completely you devote yourself to Me, the more freely you can love people. Marvel at the beauty of a life intertwined with My Presence. Rejoice as we journey together in intimate communion. Enjoy the adventure of finding yourself through losing yourself in Me.

Above all, the life of the mind puts us in touch with the best minds of mankind and allows us to travel freely across time and space. None of the giants of the past will be too busy to see us, and none will allow us to depart empty-handed. In Seneca’s words, “they are at home to all mortals by night and day.” By engaging with their writings, we participate in centuries-old conversations on the meaning of life, the good society, the nature of the cosmos, and such like. Thus, those who pursue the life of the mind can transcend their limited viewpoint and gain access to larger vistas. Then “the walls of the world fly apart,” in Cicero’s words, and we receive the precious gift of the panoramic view from above

Words and the human heart that creates them are absolutely free, with no connection to the powers that be. And that’s as it should be. A ship to enable all people to travel freely across the sea of words—we must continue our efforts to make sure The Great Passage is just that.

There was suddenly a lot of talk of freedom, but I couldn't make much of this word freedom, which floated freely in all sorts of sentences. Freedom to travel? (But will we be able to afford it?) Or freedom of opinion? (But what if no one cares about my opinion?) Freedom to shop? (But what happens when we're finished shopping?) Freedom wasn't given freely, it came at a price, and the price was my entire life up to that point. The price was that everything that had been called the present until then was now called the past.

why its Lessons Learned website was dumb. The gist of it was that people don’t learn what is imposed upon them but rather what they freely seek, out of desire or need. For people to learn, they need to want to learn. “How many times have you traveled by air?” Carter began, in his report to his superiors.

I stop being afraid of relocations and I can move wherever I want because I know that I will be loved constantly across all space. And even if it fades with them, it will bloom again. We are all conduits. It moves through us freely.

There is no need to chant, and a lotus position is optional, but if you find a quiet place and let your mind slowly and freely float along the cosmic timeline, moving through and then past our epoch, past the era of distant receding galaxies, past the era of stately solar systems, past the era of graceful swirling galaxies, past the era of burnt-out stars and wandering planets, past the era of glowing and disintegrating black holes, and onward to a cold, dark, nearly empty but potentially limitless expanse—in which the evidence that we once existed amounts to an isolated particle located here instead of there or another isolated particle moving this way instead of that—and if you are at all like me and let that reality fully settle in, the fact that we’ve traveled fantastically far into the future hardly diminishes the shuddering yet awestruck feeling that wells up inside. Indeed, in one essential way, the enormous sweep of time only adds weight to the nearly unbearable lightness of being;

Sitting in the courtyard, I watch the woman sweeping. I luxuriate in the sound of the bristles of her besom against the ground. She sweeps in an invisible pattern only she understands. I study her hands. They are blackened with chimney dust— not unlike the soft dust she’s now sweeping. It rises in a cloud above her, which makes me wonder: Where does it come from? The dust on our overworked hands and travelled shoes. The dust we inhale and cough into our handkerchiefs. The house dust, the road dust, the concrete dust, and cosmic dust. Where are they born? Perhaps they come from our aged bodies. We shed our skins like we shed our beauty— not all at once. And we walk freely on this blanket of dust without paying any mind to our ancestors, though we walk on them! Tread softly, for you tread on Yeats’s wrists and Poe’s elbows. You tread on van Gogh’s ears and Keller’s eyes. You breathe in your grandfather’s lover and the little girl you were when you were four. You smell them after the first rain in a long dry spell, or when an old lamp smoulders the bulb quite well. These all serve as reminders of our dusty secret: we are all dust under dust under dust. So next time it settles, remember to ask the dust!

Wisdom is the reasoned synthesis and acute application of knowledge to life’s greater goals and meaning. It’s a gift and collective treasure that requires years if not generations of blood, sweat, and tears, trial and error, heroism and tragedy to be honed, survive judgment, and be passed along to new stewards. Wisdom travels from mother to son, father to daughter, teacher to pupil, from master to fellow to apprentice. It is sweetest when given freely and most bitter when taken for granted. We can’t put a price on this invisible commodity. We can only hope to repay those charitable enough to have shared it with us.

Because cholesterol belongs to the lipid family (that is, fats), it is not water soluble and thus cannot dissolve in our plasma like glucose or sodium and travel freely through our circulation. So it must be carted around in tiny spherical particles called lipoproteins—the final “L” in LDL and HDL—which act like little cargo submarines. As their name suggests, these lipoproteins are part lipid (inside) and part protein (outside); the protein is essentially the vessel that allows them to travel in our plasma while carrying their water-insoluble cargo of lipids, including cholesterol, triglycerides, and phospholipids, plus vitamins and other proteins that need to be distributed to our distant tissues.

Just as love cannot be seen or truly known, but is undeniably felt, we can experience our Lord in places our mind could never travel or comprehend. Seek out these “placeless” places, where the unknown resides. Reflect upon the mysteries of life, travel into spaces with no familiar ground, venture into realms where worldly compasses fail to lead you, walk into the quantum world, where laws of science seemingly fail to work, and feel the vulnerability of your ignorance. Lean into the divinity that is hidden within everything. Break every wall of known knowledge; do not seek to know, seek to be in awe of the infinite nature of God. This is where you can experience your Lord; this is where you can be most aware that you will never know Allah as He truly is, and yet every moment of every day it is His breath that is mysteriously creating the life inside of you. My Lord, help me surrender all that I am, so that I can receive all that You seek to give me. Allah, help me to lay down the burden of doubt and to walk freely in faith, trusting that Your plans for me will always be greater than my greatest dreams. Allah, forgive me for the mistakes I have made and the mistakes I will make. My Lord, please remind me that Your goodness will always be greater than my faults, and that Your love will always be greater than my shame. Oh Allah, shine Your light upon me, so that my eyes can awaken to Your truth and so that my heart can be illuminated by the reflection of Your beauty. In Your sublime Names I pray, Ameen.

Goodwin completes his sentence like this: Christ’s “own joy, comfort, happiness, and glory are increased and enlarged by his showing grace and mercy, in pardoning, relieving, and comforting his members here on earth.”1 A compassionate doctor has traveled deep into the jungle to provide medical care to a primitive tribe afflicted with a contagious disease. He has had his medical equipment flown in. He has correctly diagnosed the problem, and the antibiotics are prepared and available. He is independently wealthy and has no need of any kind of financial compensation. But as he seeks to provide care, the afflicted refuse. They want to take care of themselves. They want to heal on their own terms. Finally, a few brave young men step forward to receive the care being freely provided. What does the doctor feel? Joy. His joy increases to the degree that the sick come to him for help and healing. It’s the whole reason he came. How much more if the diseased are not strangers but his own family? So with us, and so with Christ. He does not get flustered and frustrated when we come to him for fresh forgiveness, for renewed pardon, with distress and need and emptiness. That’s the whole point. It’s what he came to heal. He went down into the horror of death and plunged out through the other side in order to provide a limitless supply of mercy and grace to his people.

A compassionate doctor has traveled deep into the jungle to provide medical care to a primitive tribe afflicted with a contagious disease. He has had his medical equipment flown in. He has correctly diagnosed the problem, and the antibiotics are prepared and available. He is independently wealthy and has no need of any kind of financial compensation. But as he seeks to provide care, the afflicted refuse. They want to take care of themselves. They want to heal on their own terms. Finally, a few brave young men step forward to receive the care being freely provided. What does the doctor feel? Joy. His joy increases to the degree that the sick come to him for help and healing. It’s the whole reason he came. How much more if the diseased are not strangers but his own family? So with us, and so with Christ.

Who were these people who were Nico's friends at that club? It seemed like an Italian-Spanish coffeeshop. I'm not sure, it was quite far from downtown in a pretty hidden location. I don't remember the name of the club or the street, but if I drive from Urgell I can find it. I took a few pictures outside the reception area while we were waiting outside with Adam to be allowed to enter after being registered as club members. They took our entry into the almost empty private club very seriously, unlike my girlfriend selling weed in their dispensary at age 20, when I just gave her a job elsewhere. The pictures I took were of two skateboards hanging on the wall next to each other. They were spray-painted with smiling devilish faces, the comedy and tragedy masks. („Sock and buskin: The sock and buskin are two ancient symbols of comedy and tragedy. In ancient Greek theatre, actors in tragic roles wore a boot called a buskin (Latin cothurnus). The actors with comedic roles wore only a thin-soled shoe called a sock (Latin soccus).” – Source: Wikipedia) There was another skateboard hanging on the wall, showing the devil smiling with his eyes and teeth and horns only visible in the darkness of the artwork. I doubt they were Italians – they were rather Spaniards – but I never really met anyone else from there besides Nico and Carulo. But I trusted Carulo; he was different. Carulo was a known person in Catalonia. He was known to be the person who was sitting in the Catalan Parliament and rolled a joint and lit it up, smoking during a session as a protest against the law prohibiting marijuana growing and smoking in Spain. Nico told me when he introduced me to Carulo in the summer of 2013, almost a year earlier: “This is the guy you can thank for being able to smoke freely in Catalonia without the police bothering you. Tomas, meet Carulo.” He never really ordered from me if I had met him before. He had no traffic; his growshop was always closed. He was only smoking inside with his younger brother, who was always walking his bull terrier. Their white Bull Terrier was female, half the size of Chico, but she was kind of crazy; you could see in her eyes that she was not normal; she had mental issues. At least, looking into Carulo's eyes and his brother's eyes, I recognized the similar illness in their dog's eyes. In 2014, it had been over four years since I had been working with dogs in my secondary job interpreting Italian and travelling every fifth weekend. Additionally, Huns came to Europe with their animals, including their dogs. There are at least nine unique Hungarian dog breeds.

Our universe of love! Let us wander like these carefree clouds, All across the sky, Let us create love’s heart beats and its sounds, And then let the two hearts freely fly, Like these clouds in the sky, Where love abounds, And we float like these clouds by and by, To create a feeling that knows no bounds, Where there is only one destiny, The eternity of you and me, And as time every creation confounds in its final act of tyranny, And nothing exists now between you and me, Neither the space, nor time or light, For now there shall only be, You and me, no space, no time and no light, An endless you floating through the infinite me, In this state of nothingness and eternal silence, Then as your heart beats for me Irma, and mine for thee, We shall rescue the universe from this sentence, And create a universe for you and me, By lending it our heart beats, Then as the romantic sound waves travel through the darkness, And the darkness finally retreats, Then the universe gets created in its loveliness, And in it Irma, lie our heart beats, In every atom, every corner, every ray of light, And as my passion your passions meets, We become our own and the universe’s infinite delight, Where now we are what universe is, And the universe is our creation, For whatever there is, It is only our heart beats, our feelings and our single sensation, That lies in this universe of everything, But for you and me, it is our abode of love, And whenever you whisper and I hear something, It is the whisper of endless love, your and just our love, Where the stars are formed every moment, And the universe expands at its happy pace, It develops few feelings benevolent, And creates for you and me, our secret space, That lies beyond the limits of time, Where even light sees nothing, For lovers love to reside in infinite moments of time, Where even a small thing has the potential to be the God of everything, Just like our love that for now is the creator of the universe, Where our love thrives and travels everywhere, You within me while I flow within you, and together we traverse, To finally lie in our secret somewhere, that for everyone else is nowhere, only for you and me always there somewhere!

Stupidity neither needs a visa nor a license; it freely travels in your state of mind.

So I lived in their midst, always on the fringes, insignificant, and they spoke freely in my presence. I saw how little regard they had for us, how much they held us in low esteem. They did not know us, and were not really interested in knowing us either. By virtue of their faith, their mission, and their biases, they did not have to: they knew better than us, both what we needed and how we should live. I cannot discount the unparalleled work they did in education and healthcare. I would not have had a formal education had it not been part of their plan. The free dispensary was always full, rolling back childhood diseases in the region. I saw them clean the most putrid wounds with a straight face. Yet, their mission required locals to forfeit ancestral practices, including our indigenous languages, which we were forbidden from using in their presence. The essence of our being in the world, its core tenet, ingrained in us across generations, was being violently questioned. Their work demanded allegiance, utter surrender, from us. I did not realise this then, but these demands threw us off balance, divided us, made us doubt ourselves and weakened us. They birthed a cruel conflict in us, putting our loyalty to the test. We were inhabited by this childish and conflicting desire to please and resist them all at the same time. Our people claimed neither detachment from the world nor dominion over it. We did not have the universe and its mysteries, meant to be conquered, subjugated on one side, and humankind, the mighty owner of it all, on the other. We were the world and the world was us: water, wind, sand, the past, the future, the living, the dead... we were all woven into the fabric of the world. They, however, had appropriated it, simplified it to make it intelligible and malleable. They had invented words and concepts that dismissed our more complex and comprehensive intuitive understanding of reality. There is no denying that, seen through their eyes, conceptualised in their terms, the world was unmistakeably coherent, logical. For those of us who embraced the mysteries of the world, the encounter was a matter of course, and a tragedy. I doubt we will ever fully grasp the exact extent of our distress. Today, I believe Western knowledge is both simple and despotic. There is only one God and he is present in church. Education is found only in textbooks. Art is separate from spirituality, confined to specific spaces. The law applies equally to everyone and all values have a price. The sole measure of success is material. Our paths in life are already charted, marked out, and you can choose to follow... the path assigned to you. A promise of comfort, a ready-made life so enticing it warrants universalisation; a dream no human should be denied. Masters, gurus travel the world to guide lost peoples towards this path of salvation, readily resorting to violence to crush every resistance, driven by the firm conviction that their philosophy is the philosophy and their religion the religion. Perhaps it spread so far and wide due to the active proselytism inherent to the Western vision of the world, or maybe it was so easy to replicate because it was the most simplistic doctrine ever developed by humans—it did a better job of dismissing our diversity and disregarding the complexity of our being. Our material realities would become more bearable, that was the promise. It mattered not that this would devastate nature and leave our inner beings shuddering with anxiety.

Instead of drilling a hole in the skull or strapping a device onto the body, Synchron uses the “stentrode”—a device that looks like a small tube of wire mesh, and remarkably can be implanted via a catheter, much like the stents that physicians use to treat heart patients. The stentrode is fed into the jugular vein in the neck and threaded through a blood vessel that enters the brain. The device is tuned to detect the electrical signals that travel from the brain to give instructions to the limbs and fingers to move. Those signals, relayed through Bluetooth to a device outside the body, are translated by algorithms into computer commands. CEO Thomas Oxley describes it as “bringing electronics into the brain without the need for open-brain surgery.” Four Australian patients with neurodegenerative disorders have been implanted with the stentrode and are able to email, text, and even shop for groceries using only their minds.34 Synchron has also started clinical trials in the United States. Once widescale safety and efficacy have been established, it’s not hard to imagine that even a healthy individual might want a stentrode to more seamlessly interface with technology or reach just a little closer to digital immortality.

When we freely choose to surrender ourselves to God it means that we must do what Jesus did, use our minds more, not less, to discover his truth, in the authentic tradition to which we belong, and to distinguish it from the cant and hypocrisy that always tries to distort it for personal gain and pre-ferment. Then, like Jesus, we must freely choose to bear witness to that truth, whether it is welcome or unwelcome, and at whatever cost. To surrender oneself to the truth means to seek out the truth actively through serious study and deep personal contemplation, so that we can distinguish between what is the inspired word of God and what is of man, what is living tradition and what is dead traditionalism, what is infallible and what is fallible. Then we must surrender ourselves to that truth with our whole mind and heart and with our whole being, and pro-claim it from the rooftops at no matter what personal cost, as Christ did before us. This commitment to the truth that the gospel demands of all of us is uniquely embodied in the charism of the Dominican

I took a black and white photograph, which I also posted on Instagram. Her New Balance shoes and her feet crossed, hanging as she sat atop the pile of aluminum chairs, against the backdrop of the many legs of the chairs shining in the street lights in contrast to her dark shoes and leggings, were so captivating. There was a lightness in the way she sat there with her crossed legs dangling, as if she was perched on a cloud and it was the most natural thing as she was my angel. I was still unsure if she really existed or if I had only made her up with Pinto cat one night. It was all like a lucid dream. I was so glad for us and for us becoming rich soon too. I was so glad I could provide her with a future in Europe. I was so glad we would be rich and happy and we would be able to make all our dreams come true and travel the world freely together. I can show her Italy and Hungary and Europe. We can pick where do we want to live or make family. I knew all my life, all my work had led to this girl, this moment, and this future. Ours. She started to rap in Spanish in the Rioplatense dialect as I started to record her. „Loco, loco…” - she was so cute, it sounded like she had learned it on the streets of Buenos Aires, skipping school. She was amazing - so young, so true, so natural and pure and cute. I couldn't get enough of her. I wanted to make kids with her. With only her. Nobody else. By the wall of the church and the bar tables, there were a bunch of metal mobile railings with the Ajuntamiento de Barcelona logo in the middle of each of them. I told Martina to squat down to the level of the Ajuntamiento sign, and before I could finish my sentence, she was already doing it. She posed with the mobile railings, making a funny, cool and happy face while squeezing the Ajuntamiento logo between two of her fingers and pointing at it with her other hand, as if we were mocking the authorities of the Ajuntamiento. She was reading my mind. Like she knew magic. She was such a good girl. She was so pretty, smart and sexy. She was smiling, biting her lower lip, excited, turned on, and in love, I thought, looking like a bunny, or like Whitney Houston on the Brazilian live concert video, so I began to call her “Bunny”. I showed her how Whitney was smiling the same way. I was so blind to see the connection. (“The Cocaine Queen”) I was so much in love with her, so under her spell, I just really wanted her to be the One, I guess. I explained to her that the Camorra was one of my costumers and they had a club close by too and they were taking away other people's coffeeshops, menacing their lives and their families'. I explained to her that we were going to do all demolition and remodeling without any permit, without telling a word to anyone. I told her that we would lie to the residents of the building above us about what we were going to do there for months and months. I told her that she must keep it as our secret. She was nodding happily and she seemed happy that I trusted her. I explained everything to her, I told her about Rachel and Tom and I signing the founding document at Amina's office at the beginning of the same year, 2013. She seemed to understand the weight of all I told her and the reasons why I told her about it all, so she would know, so she wouldn't make a mistake saying the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time. I asked her to pay attention to her surroundings in Barcelona from then on, as there were a lot of criminals, and she was a very pretty girl - not only my girlfriend. She seemed to take it as a privilege to be my girlfriend, and she seemed eternally happy, as was I. I told her that she was the only person I fully trusted. I wanted to send the video of Martina rapping on WhatsApp to Adam, but Martina told me I shouldn't because it was late and, at the end, Adam was my boss. “Yeah but he is not really my boss, in Spain, I am the boss.

«I flew the company’s last trip. The shuttle was packed with people not returning to Earth. They’d decided to spend the rest of their lives up there.’ ‘Didn’t you want to stay up there?’ Roar laughed again. It sounded bitter. ‘I was given the choice, actually. Amongst the passengers I flew on that last trip were the director of the company and his family. He tried to persuade me. Said there wasn’t anything left on Earth. That it was all going downhill. That it was in the new worlds that there was hope.’ ‘Wasn’t he right? Why didn’t you stay?’ ‘Yes, he was right. I don’t know. I was so tired of travelling in space at that point. I longed to be on Earth, where I could breathe normally without oxygen replacement, where I could walk around freely with no restrictions. I didn’t have to stay indoors or wear spacesuits. It might sound crazy, but the last years I flew, I struggled with claustrophobia. It’s odd, the infinite space and all. But I felt so trapped.’ ‘Do you regret it?’ ‘Every day, kid. Every day. I look up at the stars in the night and wish I was there. They seem so far away, but they aren’t. It’s just a short flight. It’s killing me.»

A wise man will cultivate a servant’s spirit, for that particular attribute attracts people like no other. As I humbly serve others, their wisdom will be freely shared with me. Often, the person who develops a servant’s spirit becomes wealthy beyond measure. Many times, a servant has the ear of the king, and a humble servant often becomes a king, for he is the popular choice of the people. He who serves the most grows the fastest.

When I came to the Middle East, journalists had a kind of immunity that allowed us to travel freely and meet with militants who hated Israel and the United States. In 2000, when I was working for Agence France-Presse, I didn’t feel fearful when I went to Gaza to meet with Hamas leaders or to the West Bank to speak to Palestinian gunmen. These men didn’t much like me. We didn’t have anything in common. But they felt that they had to treat me with common decency and a modicum of respect because I was a journalist and I was writing about them. They wanted to spin me so that I would give the world their version of events. They were never completely happy, of course, because my pieces didn’t make them look as perfect as they looked to themselves. But they needed to talk to me and other reporters because we were the only way they could get their story out. Now jump ahead to 2006. Zarqawi was on his killing spree in Iraq, and suddenly the Internet had become ubiquitous, and uploading videos on YouTube and other platforms was literally child’s play. So Zarqawi and his henchmen said to themselves, “Why should we let reporters interview us and filter what we say? We can go straight to the Internet and say exactly what we want, for as long as we want to say it, and we can post videos that Western journalists would never show.” Journalists became worthless, at least as megaphones. But we became valuable as commodities to be stolen, bought, and sold, traded for prisoners, or ransomed for millions.

Let them travel freely from heart to lips. Feelings they are don’t cut them off at tips.

Please, Hunter, please, I wouldn’t ask if I had anyone else to turn to. I thought you were my friend.” Hunter studied her blond hair, braided and coiled like a snake around her crown, long curls escaping the combs to trail halfway down her back. He had walked to meet her believing she had returned to him. Now he realized she had come only to ask his aid, that she had no intention of remaining beside him. He felt like a foolish young boy, humiliated and angry. But not so angry that he wanted her on her knees. It was the first time he had seen her surrender her pride. By that alone he knew how deeply she loved the child that had been lost to her. I thought you were my friend. The words cut deep. Perhaps he should feel honored. She had traveled a great distance into his land, trusting him with her life and with the life of the child she loved. “Stand, Blue Eyes,” he told her gently. She tipped her head back. Tears shimmered on her cheeks. “I’ll do anything, Hunter. I’ll serve you on my knees. I’ll be your loyal slave forever. I’ll kiss the ground you walk on, anything.” He disengaged his hand from hers and grasped her shoulders, hauling her to her feet. “I want you in my buffalo robes, not making kisses in the dirt.” Her eyes darkened. “I’ll do anything.” Hunter was about to tell her he would find Amy, that she need not beg, but her last words stopped him. He was not a stupid man. He searched her pale face. “I’ll be your woman. That’s what you want, isn’t it? I’ll stay with you. Freely. If you’ll find Amy and bring her back to me. I promise, Hunter.” Her desperation made him feel ashamed. She had come to him for help; he couldn’t turn her away. He needed no reward for finding her sister. Yet he wanted this woman. And she was here, offering herself to him.

Let them travel freely, from heart to lips. Feelings they are, don't cut them off at tips.

Even at a distance he recognized the way she sat a horse, the tilt of her head. He couldn’t believe she had come so far and so quickly. Fate had indeed led her in a circle back to him. Ordering Blackbird back to his mother’s lodge, Hunter increased his pace, the dread of leaving his people forgotten. Destiny. A month ago he had railed against it. Now he wasn’t certain how he felt. Resentful, yet pleased. And relieved. Deep in the quiet places of his heart, he sensed the rightness. Fate. Today it had brought him a woman, a woman like no other, with skin as white as a night moon, hair like honey, and eyes like the summer sky. His woman, and this time she came freely. From the hilltop Loretta watched the lone man walking toward her from the village. Relief flooded through her when she recognized Hunter’s loose-hipped, graceful stride. She crossed herself quickly and murmured thanks to the Holy Mother for her intercession. A dozen emotions surging through her, she urged Friend down the embankment. Hunter met her halfway across the flat. As Loretta rode toward him, she couldn’t stop staring. Even though she had been away from him only a short while, she had forgotten how Indian he looked. How savage. He moved with the fluid strength of a well-muscled animal, his shoulders, arms, and chest in constant motion, a bronzed play of tendon and flesh. The wind whipped his hair about his face. Mercy. He wasn’t wearing any breeches, just a breechcloth and knee-high moccasins. She drew Friend to a halt and swallowed a rush of anxiety. Aunt Rachel was right. He was a Comanche, first, last, and always. Yet she had come to him. “Blue Eyes?” He slowed his pace as he got closer, his indigo eyes traveling the length of her, taking in every detail of her dress, from the high neckline down to the bit of petticoat and black high-topped shoes showing below the hem of her full skirts. His eyes warmed with the familiar gleam of laughter that had once irritated her so much. She fastened her gaze on his face and, resisting the need to blurt out her troubles, searched her mind for the appropriate Comanche greeting, determined to begin this encounter on the right note. “Hi, hites,” she said, lifting her right hand. He caught the stallion’s bridle and stepped close. He was so tall that he didn’t have to tip his head back to see her face. With a smile in his voice, he replied, “Hello.” Loretta caught her bottom lip between her teeth to stop its trembling. How like him to remember her word of greeting. He was her friend. She had been right to come here.

The jolly old elf’s nose was red, but not from cold — rather, from the brutality of a dozen boxes of Kleenex. Mucus flowed freely down his cheeks, and mixed with tears of agony. She folded her arms, pursed her lips, and declared: “You’re not going out this week.

Hope   The optimistic side of me Likes to dream That rainbows follow rain There’s a little girl I used to know Fair-haired and wide-eyed Imagining elves and giants Ghosts and goblins Chasing the wind unseen Her whole life unlived - Does she still wander freely In her dreams?

We loved the wide-open west. Our explorations of the numinous Canadian landscape fed the songs, and our souls. We caught the west in the last of its wild state. Many of the songs I wrote in the seventies reflect our travels through the great expanse of the Canadian prairies, across the Rocky Mountains, to the moisture-rich West Coast. Space was everywhere, and there is space in the songs. Everything wasn’t a tourist trap yet, clear-cutting was not so evident, and agribusiness hadn’t completely killed off the family farm. In the first couple of years that Kitty, Aroo, and I travelled westward from Ontario, we were practically the only road campers out there. Seldom did we run across anyone else travelling the way we were. The prairies were full of abandoned old farmhouses—no families to be seen—harbingers of the reversion to feudal agricultural economics. All around the land still looked wild. Our journeys offered at least the illusion of freedom, as well as a deep sense of the land as Divine creation. Soon, though, we were seeing the spaces fill up with scabrous industrial sites, hotels, housing developments, shopping opportunities. We’d watch like gawkers at a train wreck as the land was eaten up before our eyes by inevitable human expansion and greed. There were ever more rules about where you could park your camper. It was the tail end of an epoch when the land was open and it, and we, could breathe freely. That will never come again.