The Joy of Being

http://www.eckharttolle.com/beta/home/

You can't invent the truth and put it in a book. You can, however, point to it in a book. As Tolle does in A New Earth. This book shook me. Not because it tugs at my heart strings. It tugs at my very being. How? Here's a taster:

Through enthusiasm you enter into full alighnment with the outgoing principle of the universe ...

Joy does not come from what you do, it flows into what you do and thus into this world from deep within you.It isn't the action you perform that you really enjoy, but the deep sense of aliveness that flows into it. That aliveness is one with who you are.

'The joy of Being cannot come to you through any form, possession, achievement, person or event -- through anything that happens. That joy cannot come to you -- ever. It emanates from the formless dimension within you, from consciousness itself and thus is one with who you are.'

'What the world doesn't tell you ... is that you cannot become successful. You can only BE successful. Don't let a mad world tell you that success is anything than a successful present moment. And what is that? There is a sense of quality in what you do, even the most simple action.

Wnen doing becomes infused with the timeless quality of Being, that is success. Unless Being flows into doing, unless you are present, you lose yourself in whatever you do. You also lose yourself in thinking, as well as in your reactions to what happens externally.

The "waiting to start living" syndrome is one of the most common delusions of the unconscious state.

... realizing that your entire life journey ultimately consists of the step you are taking at this moment. There is always only this one step so you give it your fullest attention. This doesn't mean you don't know where you are going; it just means this step is primary, the destination secondary... What the future holds for you depends on your state of consciousness now.

Presence is a state of inner spaciousness.

For happiness, how little suffices for happiness! .. the least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a wisk, an eye glance -- little maketh up the best happiness. Be
still. (Nietsche)

Don't seek happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it because seeking is
the antithesis of happiness.

There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so. (Shakespeare)

Be still. Look. Listen. Be present.

One with Life. Being one with life is being one with Now. You then realize you don't live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.

Knowing the oneness of yourself and the other is true love, true care, true compassion.

This, too, will pass.

Fulfil me, make me happy, make me feel safe, tell me who I am. The world cannot give you those things, and when you no longer have such expectations, all self-created suffering comes to an end. All such suffering is due to ... an unawareness of the dimension of inner space.

Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.

When you react against the form that life takes at this moment, when you treat the Now as a means, an obstacle or an enemy, you strengthen your own form identity, the ego.

The foundation for greatness is honouring the small things of the present moment instead of pursuing the idea of greatness. Greatness is a mental abstraction and a favourite fantasy of the ego.

When you look upon what you do or where you are as the main purpose of your life, you negate time...The negation of time in what you do also provides the link between your inner and outer purposes, between Being an doing... Whatever you do, you will be doing extraordinarily well, because the doing is the focal point of you attention. Your doing becomes a channel through which consciousness enters this world.

But the true or primary purpose of your life cannot be found on the outer level. It does not concern what you do, but what you are -- that is to say, your state of conscousness.

Your inner purpose is to awaken. It is as simple as that.

Your outer purpose can change over time. .. Finding and living in alignment with the inner purpose is the foundation for fulfilling you outer purpose. It is the basis for true success.

You need to lose yourself to find yourself.

You cannot receive what you don't give. Outflow determines inflow.

Knowing yourself is being yourself and being yourself is ceasing to identify with content.

Being must be felt. It can't be thought.

If the shutters are closed, the light cannot come in.

Love and do what you will.

You can't argue with what is. Well, you can, but if you do, you suffer.

Knowing yourself is to be rooted in being instead of lost in your mind.

To forgive is to overlook or rather, look through. You look through the ego to the sanity that is in every human being as his/her essence.

Read it.

On Dust and God

More food for thought on Pullman's The Amber Spyglass (the last installment from His Dark Materials)

The Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord ... the Almighty -- those were all names he gave himself. He was never the creator. He was an angel like ourselves -- the first angel, true, the most powerful, but he was formed of Dust as we are, and Dust is only a name for what happens when matter begins to understand itself. Matter loves matter. It seeks to know more about itself, and Dust is formed. The first angels condensed out of Dust, and the Authority was the first of all. He told those who came after him that he created them, but it was a lie. One of those who came later was wiser than he was, and she found the truth, so he banished her."

"Conscious beings make Dust -- they renew it all the time, by thinking and feeling and reflecting, by gaining wisdom and passing it on.

And if you help everyone else in your worlds to do that, by helping them to learn and understand about themselves and each other and the way everything works, and by showing them how to be kind instead of cruel, and patient instead of hasty, and cheerful instead of surly, and above all how to keep their minds open and free and curious ... Then they will renew enough to replace what is lost through one window."

Low Expectations

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/043999358X/ref=sib_rdr_dp

SPOILER WARNING!

Yes, I must admit that on starting His Dark Materials (and half through The Golden Compass, to be honest) I didn't have high expectations -- I didn't think I would enjoy it as much as I did the Twilight series, the Harry Potter books, etc. I was curious and that was that. I'm done with all three books and I'm not sure if I like them as much as my other favourites.

But.

The final one, The Amber Spyglass is riveting. Part of its charm, no doubt, is that it's the most revealing, being the last one of the trilogy.

So Lyra and Will (the bearer of the Subtle knife, which can cut through anything in any world) find out about Dust, about themselves and about each other. At a cost. As I mentioned in my previous post on this, http://ricky-blue.blogspot.com/2009/03/golden-knife.html, she would probably have to pay a big price to fulfil the prophesy of the witches and she did. You cannot help but admire her courage. It's not the courage of the foolhardy who is brave because s/he does not think of the consequences. Once she realizes that to descend to the world of the dead, she will have to abandon her daemon (her own soul, remember), she suffers, but she still does not give up.

Will and Lyra go there to talk to her childhood friend, but eventually they find a way out of the world of the dead, which is a frighteningly dismal place of nothingess, to a world in a parallel universe where the spirits of the dead are finally free to unite with the air, earth and everything living.

And here is one important message of the book: the spirits of the dead cannot find the way out unless they solicit the help of creatures called harpies. The harpies in turn require them to tell the true story of their life and if they consider it untruthful or the ghosts have nothing to tell them then they won't guide them out: If they live in the world, they should see and touch and her and learn things. As Dumbledore in Half-blood Prince (If I remember right or was it the Order of the Phoenix?) points out, there are worse things that death. Lyra and Will's journey with the dead made me think that nothingness is one of them, because it means lack of consciousness, ie you don't even know if you exist and worse, you don't care. (will come back tot hat when talking about the specters). In this sense, it's better to have lived and died, then never to have done either.

The story develops in parallel plotlines and worlds, which helps to piece together the truth about Lyra's destiny, about Dust, the future of the worlds and of the Authority (ie God).

Writing about His Dark Materials now, I realize there are so many things to consider in the discussion of the four above that I'll need separate posts for each.

Cat Wisdom

So einfach
Das Leben ist voller guter Gelegenheiten.
Wir müssen sie nur ergreifen.
Und unser Herz und unsere Augen öffnen für das Schöne im Leben.

http://www.gwbi.de/webshop/index.php?http://www.gwbi.de/webshop/shop.php?mode=show_group&group=433&sid=7299b2ccf7be16404e0487095706bf0a

CATIME & MORE

Card Art Edition, Jochen Mariss, http://www.gwbi.de/

Verlagsgruppe Weltbild GmBH, Ausburg

The Spring Season of Mind

Spring is my favourite season; it's the time I feel nature coming back to life for yet another year.

It's the time when I start to wake up earlier, because days get longer;

It's the time I want to be outside more and more;

It's the time I feel the joy of birds singing, flowers blossoming and trees yawning in the spring breeze;

This year the spring solstice came and went bringing snowy drizzle, wind and cold.

And yet my mind was in the mood for spring and as it didn't look like spring outside, I stayed indoors marveling at this:

Kamut Salad

I always get very enthusiastic about trying new foods :)))
First heard and seen kamut this January in Germany; couldn't resist buying some for home.
For the uninitiated, it looks like wheat, bit it's a bit longer and chewier. Tastes bit differently as well.
So for my first kamut cooking, I decided that a salad will set off it's taste nicely and I tossed up the thing on the photo above -- carrots, kamut, the so-called Chinese cabbage, some pepper and spices.
It was rather wholesome, the bowl above can happily feed 2-3 people.

'No one forgets the truth ... they just get better at lying'

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1759480320/tt0959337

"How do you break free without breaking apart?"

Revolutionary Road is a heartbreaking story.

Leo and Kate play against each other perfectly.

It might as well been a play. After all, Sam Mendes, the director, started out his work in the theater.

I cried.

In Memoriam

It's been a year.

My first and only cat, Ricky, died on 4 March 2008.

I still miss her some times more than others. It's not like missing a person, but she had her own personality. I miss the small things: how she curled up to sleep somewhere on me at night, how she liked to 'talk' -- the Siamese are famously talkative, but this one was really something: such a strong and often used voice -- you'd never expect it from such a small cat. The Siamese are also notoriously vicious -- not this one. Ricky was very patient and good-natured, for a cat, that is. Her free will and comfort were always top priorities. Whatever mischief she wanted to do or had already done, however, paled into insignificance when you looked at her eyes -- the most brilliant blue. Unforgettable.

The Golden Knife*

* No, I didn't mess up the title of the book; it's just that I'd probably draw on both The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife in this post.

SPOILER WARNING!

I suppose the first time I've heard about Philip Pullman and His Dark Materials was on one of the Pottercast's episodes, the Leaky Cauldron's weekly podcast. Somebody mentioned something about other worlds and a girl on a journey. Yeah, that was a long time ago. I don't remember if I even linked it to The Golden Compass film of 2007.

I have all but forgotten it until this summer. I saw it in the bookshops on the Gatwick airport and in Dublin. I didn't buy it, though; those were the times of Twilight and getting the Meyer's series topped my booklist and filled my suitcase close to a bursting point. (Breaking Dawn is the size of a brick, after all). So Lyra's story had to wait until my January visit to Cologne.

I'm now through the first instalment, the Golden Compass (or Northern Lights as it was originally called). I've seen the film, of course, but I was surprised to find out that it didn't cover the whole of the first book at all. It stops after Lyra, Iorek and the gyptians saved the children from Bolvangar. And that's roughly three fourths into the book.

Frankly, I find what's going on from then on and into The Subtle Knife much more interesting.

Shortly after that, Lyra is captured alone in Svalbard (ruled by severe armoured bears) where she has to fend for herself. I know I've said I didn't like her much, but she's started to grow on me: her character develops and displays more nuances than the original, headstrong haughty child we started out with. But she's been a survivor all the way through and I guess she'll make it till the end of the series. What's a bit worrying is that there's been a prophesy about her for centuries, a prophesy known to witches which says that a child would come and have a profound change on all worlds and would have to do things in her innocence, without knowing their full significance. Such characters usually have to pay a big price for such doings in books, I hope she survives.

Anyway, I've had doubts not only about liking Lyra, but liking the series as a whole. While ploughing through The Golden Compass, I've had the sense of reading a science fiction book rather than a fantasy one for all the witches and talking bears and people with daemons. After all, everyone is preoccupied with dust coming from the sky, with the aurora revealing a city from another world, etc. The plot's becoming exceeding interesting, however. As far as I can gather from Lord Asriel's explanations, it seems that Dust is seen as the physical expression of original sin. Yes, the one in the Bible. It's attracted to adults and not to children, presumambly because they are still innocent. Dust is feared by the Church and all researchers in the field are persecuted.

Mrs Coulter also explains that if daemons are cut drom their humans while still children, Dust won't cling to them when they grow up and they would be happy and safe. But as Lyra discovers, all those who went through such an intercision either cannot survive the loss of their daemon, who is in fact a part of, if not their whole soul, or if they do, they are like sleepwlakers, without free will or sense of self. They can do as they are told and that's all. Incidentally, it's been satisfying to build more experience with daemons: they are not, as the name suggests, necessarily our secret, evil nature. They are part of people, part of their soul, when a human dies, his/her daemon disappears, and vice versa. They cannot be more that a few yards physically apart from each other. They share their thoughts and senses. If someone touches your daemon, you feel it.

I'm almost half-through The Subtle Knife, a book about Lyra's own journey in search for the nature of Dust -- a journey that leads her through other worlds, including into our own and more or less into our own time. So there's still a lot to discover about Dust (known as dark matter in our own world).

What I find curious is this: at a period when I'm coming across and been told about various spiritual writings on how the earth's energy and magnetic field is changing and thus causing changes in mankind, which will slowly lead to an altered consciousness and a move into another age, even another dimension, I start reading this novel, a book of fiction through and through, on paralel universes with windows between them, some people crossing from one to the other, etc. Coincidences are meaningful, right.

No doubt, I'll finish His Dark Materials soon, I find them compelling and I'm curious to see what explanation Puulman would pull through regarding Dust, sin and religion on the whole. I wonder if he would stick to universal moral values such as love and compassion or ...

From Rags to Raja

http://www.slumdogmillionairemovie.co.uk/

SPOILER WARNING!

This is not the first rag-to-riches story, nor shall it be the last. We've got it all in there: trouble and strife, even torture and finally the happy ending with Bollywood touches. Still I find it disturbing; as my friend said, the disturbing thing is that it looks real. The poverty, the slums, the gangster underworld, the rubbish dumps, all of it. There was a lot of media coverage of Mumbai slums because of this film and it does like that. OK, the film may exaggerate and concentrate it because we have to focus on one story, but still. And yes, this is not the only slum area in the world, it probably isn't the worst. But that's not the point. The point is: Jamal's life story played out in a bunch of random questions in a mainstream TV show watched by millions. I think that's the best thing about this film: that it manages to compress a human life in a multiple-choice TV game, but in order to diminish it, and yet through it we see the pain and effort each right answer has cost Jamal. He knows the answers not because he is smart, or highly educated, or because he cheats. He knows them because he has lived through these questions: he knows who invented the revolver because his brother said the name when he threreatened him with one, he knows what Rama holds in his right hand, because he's seen it the day his mother was killed, etc. The police inspector recognizes this and finally lets him go.

And again, it's about choice, it matters not what you're born, but what you grow up to be, as it's said in one of my favourite book series, Harry Potter. Jamal and his brother have the same background, but choose differently, and so they live differently and bear the consequences. It is written.

All in all, the script is great, the classic story and yet not quite. This is not a mainstream film, not that it is expected with Danny Boyle at the helm. Boyle's creations include The Beach and Trainspotting (I still don't think I can live through the whole of it; I've tried, but this film does not agree with me ... maybe when I live to 90 and nothing material and worldly can impress me anymore ...). As I said, Slumdog has a very realistic feel, live action shooting or whatever they called this shaky on-the-spot-kind-of shooting as well as the sweeping shots of Mumbai contribute to it. The soundtrack suits it a lot giving the ending a lively tribute to Bollywood. Actors suit it as well, the children are naturals.

In any case, this is a film worth seeing. I understand why it got so many Oscars (though I haven't yet seen the other nominated films), though I cannot but feel a teensy surprise at this choice. The most glitzy, glamourous and commercial awards in the film industry do not go to mainstream, blockbuster Hollywood (not that they always do), but to the ... Slumdog in Mumbai. I don't disgree, but my thoughts on the Oscars night are another story, which I'll be telling later.

3 Twilights

SPOILER WARNING!

http://www.twilightthemovie.com/

Yeah, well, I've already seen Twilight three times and it's not enough. Not in the sense that the plot is complicated or disjointed, no; or that there are too many cinematic things to watch out for like camera angles, lightings, etc. This is more of a feel-like film; it creates atmosphere and that's why I'd see it again. Its soundtrack and panoramic shots are very expressive, though the script is pretty good as well (with the odd exception I mentioned in a previous viewing).

I've listened to Bella's Lullaby from the soundtrack and it's ... it's not typical. (I think, am not so sure, but somewhere in the book it was said that Edward composed it for Bella and that it sounded somehow familiar to her even the first time she heard it). It sets out like it's for the opening scene of some epic film, but then it changes course. It's not sweet or tender, it sounds encompassing, expansive, it gives a sense of freedom. And Bella frees Edward in many ways: from loneliness and especially from his fear of eternal damnation. (Basically, he thinks, at least initially, that he is a monster and will burn in hell for that).

P.S. The Cullens are great; hence their picture goes into this post:)))

The Sweet Side of Cologne

Some of the more extravagant choc-choices:

Testing, Tasting ..

Doubt

http://doubt-themovie.com/

This is a superbly played film. I think that the Academy Award nominations are fully deserved, especially by Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

It's a bit strange to see Meryl in this serious role after seeing her last year in Mamma Mia -- I'm more convinced than ever that she can play anything.

As for Philip -- I don't like his roles generally, but I must admit he's a very good actor.

Now for the film itself -- well, all this set-in-stone moral certainty is a bit scary in the sense that it can go to extremes and adversely affect people's lives. It hasn't been definitively proven that Father Flynn (Hoffman's character) was guilty of anything. And as it turns out, even the most certain people have doubts and there's some truth in that doubts brings us together, as Father Flynn says in one of his sermons. But so do joys and misfortunes.

What I like about this film is that in a comparatively short time (less than 2 hours), a truly complex story unfolds -- we see the strict discipline of a church school in the late 60s in Bronx, we see the complications arising from the first black student there; we see the family problems this boy has, we see the inner squables, the tensions between the priesthood and the nunnery, etc. It's quite a multi-layered snapshot.

Worth seeing.

Not for cheering oneself up, though.

Just Throwing it In

http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product-gallery/0345413350/ref=cm_ciu_pdp_images_0?ie=UTF8&index=0

I've wanted His Dark Materials since last summer when I saw the series in Dublin. Twilight was priority then and I couldn't squeeze everything in my luggage. But Pullman's time came last week in Cologne.

I've started The Golden Compass and am reading happily along. It's got a sense of mystery to it which turns the pages, though the amount of detail gets me pausing from now and then, but I expect this will stop when I am better acquainted with the world of the book.

From my cursory internet research on Pullman and the trilogy, it seems to me that it's not pure fantasy; Pullman put quite a lot of science fiction in it. I'm not a huge science fiction fan generally, but we'll see.

What originally caught my attention was the daemon idea. I enjoyed The Golden Compass film as well. I hope there's more of daemon theory in the course of the plot.

I'm still not sure if Lyra is my type of character. I hope she is, because I like books better when I like the characters in them:)

Cologne Revisited

I spent almost six months in Cologne, Germany more than ffour years ago. As it happened, together with a friend, we retraced our steps this past week.

I didn't notice any major changes, it's as colourful and multicultural place as it used to be. (OK, a bit on the grey side, but that's because it's winter.)

All the same, I was struck anew by the Cathedral. It's imposing and huge. You can't take one look at it and be done. The amount of detail that went into its construction was amazing.

Here it is:

Other favourite towers and turrets:

But Cologne is not only about spires. It's also about chocolate. The best place to learn about it is the Chocolate Museum:

Irresistable spots (especially in rainy, windy weather):

And of course, it's not only Cologne we went to. But that's for another post.

P.S. A mystery unsolved:

Why do they lock the rubbish containers?

First Thoughts on Hopping Pots, Hairy Hearts and Death

http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Beedle-Bard-Standard/dp/0545128285/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232712855&sr=8-1

SPOILER WARNING!

Death has always been a major theme with JK Rowling, both in her personal life (her mother's) and in her Harry Potter series (the death of Harry's parents).

And so it is in Tales of Beadle the Bard, her collection of fairy tales for the wizarding children. My favourites are the Fountain of Fair Fortune and the Tale of the Three Brothers /familiar from the Deathly Hallows, but as good as ever/.

The Fountain deals with the perennial quest of happiness and the mistaken idea that it comes from the outside and not from one's inner self and that there's a panaecea that can solve all your problems.

The Three Brothers is a tale of escaping death. The morale is that it can't be escaped, let alone be outwitted; the best one can hope for is to delay it as long as possible so as to have time to lead a rich and fulfiling life.

This story isn't as scary as it sounds, though. The most scary for me was the one about the Warlock's Hairy Heart. The images are pretty gruesome; cutting out heats, shrivelling hearts, etc. Hardly looks like a children's story, but then JK Rowling's belief is that children should meet serious stuff as early as possible in books so that they are prepared for it in real life.

The best thing about the book is Dumbledore's commentary. I expected less but they are quite detailed covering the possible origins of the tales, their morale, various historical notes, etc. Some are quite fun, the quirkiness of Dumbledore shines through:)

Twilight the Second

SPOILER WARNING!

http://www.twilightthemovie.com/

It's been a while since I saw Twilight again, but it's been pretty busy so I didn't get a chance to visit my blog until today.

Eerie. That's the prevailing feel of that film. Lots of factors contribute to it. The romance of the story, the vampire link, the cloudy, deep-green of the scenery, the mysticism of the Quilettes ...

I think Rosalie could have been prettier, but apart from her and Charlie, I'm quite happy with the cast. The chemistry between Bella and Edward is superb, the director and the actors can take full credit for it. I think this is the most important aspect of the film and they simply nailed it. I hope it won't be lost in future films of the series with the change of directors, etc.

I think we could have seen a bit more of Jasper; he hardly talks and there is no mention or example of his powers ... I hope he's not downplayed in the future.

On the whole, it seems that the filmmakers show some respect for the Twihards, the film being as true to the book as it is.

That's all, folks:)))
For this viewing, at least

Twilight - 1st Viewing

SPOILER WARNING!

http://www.twilightthemovie.com/

I've decided to push the thought of the Twilight movie to the very back of my mind - I expected a looong wait. And yet, towards the end of the abnormally long 1st post New Year workweek, I got it!

It's as good as I expected; judging from the trailers and clips I've seen before. And I agree with most of the reviewers -- Kristen and Robert did a great job, especially Kristen. She got both the ordinariness and the depth of Bella. As for Robert, I'd say that he was more reserved than he should have been; I'm afraid that most of the time the nonTwilight fans of the audience wouldn't get him. I guess that it is for that part of the viewers that we have that scene in the forest (it's in one of the trailers, too) when Bella says that she knows what he is. That looked a bit cheap to me.

Apart from that, I think the movie is very true to the book; all that should be in the movie is there. The casing is great, all vampires (nomads included) look like the classic Hollywood stars (as they should). I would have liked to see a bit more of them, it wouldn't have taken so much time. I'm a bit unhappy with Charlie: I don't know if it's the casting or the script, but he came across as too sad and unemotional. OK, Charlie is like that, but not to that extent.

Cinematography is fabulous. Loved the scenic shots. The way that they filmed the vampires walking was great as well. Maybe the battle scene in the end, in the ballet studio, left something to be desired in the realistic corner, but that's not the most important thing. It's a book about two people finding each other and trying to deal with the consequences. The movie is about the same.

And I'd see it again. And again.

Got it!

Finally laid my hands on Beadle the Bard, the fairy tales of J K Rowling's wizarding world!

Now ... to reading:)

Looking Back ...

Pros and cons.

Used to be quite keen on listing pros and cons (mentally, not literally) when recapitulating past experiences or making decisions.

Not so much anymore. I know it's widely recommended in various writings of the self-help genre, but I don't think it's either helpful or, well, right. Drawing from my own experience, I've come to the conclusion that this method is no good. Pros and cons have often come more or less equal in both number and strength with the result of confusing me even more and making any decision almost unthinkable. (to say nothing of the muddled state of my intuition). Or else, I've end up with a very strong advantange/s or disadvantage/s in one of the options, which renders the whole exercise useless. The truth is that a simple method as this can hardly encompass the complexity of important choices; in such situations you almost never know all the variables in the equation; hence you cannot easily assign a positive or negative value to all of them and come up with the correct answer. It can work with more straightforward cases, I guess.

Bottomline: won't take stock of 2008 by means of pros and cons.

In the last year I've come closer to the thinking that whatever happens, happens for a reason. Of course, I've known this for a long time. My mother broght me up to believe that there are no coincidences, that whatever you do, whether for the better or worse, finds its way back to you (or to your loved ones) sooner or later. The new thing this year (past year, already) is that judging from what happens around me, all these things are true. This does not necessarily mean that I enjoy everything and everyone in the same way or that I rejoice in succcess as much as in failure. What I mean is that I'm better convinced now than I was a year ago, that we do not live in a vacuuum, because everything we do in thought, word or deed is not left hanging in the air. It affects us as much (if not more) than the people we direct it at. Anger, love, hate, everything bounces back. It's the same with thoughts. Sometimes it happens that when I think continously about someone, I either meet them or get a call from them. Of course, it's easy to overdo this by seeking significance in any trivia or milking every second for more that it's worth. I think this is where a good intuition (sixth sense, higher power or whatever you may wish to call it) can step in and guide us.

At the end of the day, or rather the year, you cannot but be full of hope for the next one. Looking forward to 2009:)

2009 IS HERE!

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!

Three Men in a Boat

http://www.amazon.com/

What can you possibly expect from three men in a boat with a dog of the same gender?

Lazy hours of pipe-smoking and whisky-drinking? No cooking or at least no edible result of it? Mysterious loss of anything essential for the trip? Occassional commotion over who is supposed to do what? The gloss of humour glinting off whatever trouble they get themsleves in?

Surely, you don't expect anything contemplative or poetic as the following. At least I didn't.

And yet it seems so full of comfort and of strength, the night. In its great presence, our sorrows creep away, ashamed. The day has been so full of fret and care, and our hearts have been so full of evil and of bitter thoughts, and the world has seemed so hard and wrong to us. Then Night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her hand upon our fevered head ... and the pain is gone.

Sometimes our pain is very deep and real, and we stand before her very silent, because there is no language for our pain, only a moan. Night's heart is full of pity for us ... she takes our hand in hers, and the little world grows very small and very far beneath us, and, borne on her dark wings, we pass for a moment into a mightier Presence than her own, and in the wondrous light of that great Presence, all human life lies like a book before us, and we know that Pain and Sorrow are but the angels of God.

Simply loved it.

Occassionaly, there's the odd passage like the one above; otherwise the book centers mostly on the experience of the four characters I already mentioned and their adventures on a boat trip along the Thames. It's full of humour and irony for classic stereotypes like fishermen, barmen, landlords and situations like packing, shopping, putting up a tent, playing a musical instrument, eating even.

Reflections on peeling potatoes, boiling water for tea and working in general are such joy to read!

I must say that this book surpassed my expectations. Generally I don't fall for an episodic, sketch-like of novels, I mean the Tristram Shandy kind of novel. I like continuos plots and characters I can love/identify with/learn something from, ie. anything to catch my eye and hold my emotions. Three Men in a Boat is funny and thoughtlful at the same time; definitely gives me something to take away with me.