Goethe Month: The in-between places

Photographed by Jim Furness at the Pinncales in CA.

Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust,
Die eine will sich von der andern trennen;
Die eine hält, in derber Liebeslust,
Sich an die Welt, mit klammernden Organen;
Die andre hebt gewaltsam sich vom Dust,
Zu den Gefilden hoher Ahnen.
O giebt es Geister in der Luft,
Die zwischen Erd’ und Himmel herrschend weben

Two souls dwell, alas, in my breast and their
Division tears my life in two.
One loves the world, it clutches her, it binds
Itself to her, clinging with furious lust;
The other desires to fly beyond the dust
Into the realm of high ancestral minds.
Are there no spirits moving in the air,
Ruling the region between earth and sky?

So steiget nieder aus dem goldnen Duft
Und führt mich weg, zu neuem buntem Leben!
Ja, wäre nur ein Zaubermantel mein!
Und trüg’ er mich in fremde Länder

Come down then to me from your golden mists on high,
Give me a magic cloak to carry me
Away to some far place, some land untold,

(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Act 1: Scene 5, 1110-1125.)

Daily Batman: Wings of imagination

“The man who has no imagination has no wings.”

— Muhammad Ali

Langston Hughes Month: Broken-winged birds

Hold fast to your dreams,
for if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
that cannot fly.

— “Dreams,” Langston Hughes

Daily Batman: Offer no angles to the wind

Advice, Msgr. Tessimond edition.

Take flight and offer no angles to the wind. Escape this earth and its loopholes and pushy windmakers.

Illustration by Tony Parker.

Cats, no less liquid than their shadows, offer no angles to the wind. They slip, diminished, neat, through loopholes less than themselves.
— A. S. J. Tessimond