Psyche

 

Psyche

 

Psyche is the Greek goddess of the soul, known for her arduous journey from a mortal princess to an immortal wife of Eros (Cupid). Her story, famously told in Apuleius’s The Golden Ass, symbolizes the soul's purification and triumph through love and perseverance after surviving tasks set by Aphrodite. She is often depicted with butterfly wings. 

Key Aspects of the Myth:

• The Mortal Beauty: Psyche was so beautiful that she rivaled Aphrodite (Venus), prompting the goddess to send her son, Eros, to make her fall in love with a monster.
• Marriage to Eros: Instead of a monster, Eros fell in love with her, bringing her to a magical palace where he visited her only at night, telling her she must never see his face
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The Betrayal: Persuaded by her jealous sisters, Psyche lit a lamp to look at her husband. A drop of oil fell, waking Eros, who fled, stating that love cannot exist without trust.
The Trials: Searching for her husband, Psyche fell into the hands of Aphrodite, who forced her to complete four impossible tasks, including sorting a massive pile of seeds and retrieving beauty from the underworld.
Immortality: With help from unexpected sources, she completed the tasks. Eros, still loving her, persuaded Zeus to make Psyche immortal, allowing them to marry permanently

Astarte

 

Astarte

 

Astarte is a prominent ancient Near Eastern goddess of war, sexual love, and fertility, worshipped across Phoenicia, Canaan, Egypt, and Syria from the Bronze Age through the Iron Age. As the chief deity of Tyre and Sidon, she was frequently associated with lions, horses, and the planet Venus, often considered the Western counterpart to the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar. 

• Roles & Attributes: She governed sexuality, fertility, war, and hunting. While often associated with fertility, some scholarship focuses more on her roles as a combatant on horseback, a "lady of love," and a divine power.
• Symbolism & Representation: Often depicted nude or as a warrior, her symbols included the lion, the dove, and the star within a circle (Venus).
• Cultural Significance: She was widely worshipped by Phoenicians, Canaanites, and adopted into Egyptian and Hittite pantheons. She was sometimes viewed as a consort of the storm god Baal.
• Biblical Context: In the Hebrew Bible, she is often referenced as "Ashtoreth" (a combination of her name with boshet, meaning "shame") and her cult was heavily condemned.
• Legacy: She was equated with the Greek Aphrodite and the Egyptian Isis, influencing the later development of deities like Atargatis
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if you bake with indifference, you bake a bitter bread

 

The sun teaches to all things that grow their longing for the light. 

But it is night that raises them to the stars.

 

The brooks flow to their lover, the sea, 

and the flowers smile at the object of their passion, the light. 

The mist rolls down to its beloved, the valley. 

 

The secret is here in the present. 

If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it.

 And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better. 

Forget about the future, and live each day 

Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity

 

If we were all to sit in a circle and confess our sins, 

we would laugh at each other for lack of originality

 

I want to feel what it's like, 

cause death is only going to happen to you once.

 

Life can seem short or life can seem long, 

depending on how you live it

 

You can't avoid pain, 

but you can choose to overcome it

 

Listen to your heart. 

It knows all things, 

because it came from the Soul of the World

 and it will one day return there

 

All we have to do is understand that we're all here for a reason and to commit ourselves to that. 

Then we can laugh at our sufferings, 

large and small and walk fearlessly, 

aware that each step has meaning

 

I must try to enjoy all the graces that God has given me today. Grace cannot be hoarded. There are no banks where it can be deposited to be used when I feel more at peace with myself. If I do not make full use of these blessings, I will lose them forever.

God knows that we are all artists of life. One day, he gives us a hammer with which to make sculptures, another day he gives us brushes and paints with which to make a picture, or paper and a pencil to write with. But you cannot make a painting with a hammer, or a sculpture with a paintbrush. Therefore, however difficult it may be, I must accept today's small blessings, even if they seem like curses because I am suffering and it's a beautiful day, the sun is shining

 

Man struggles to find life outside himself, 

unaware that the life he is seeking is within him

 

A flower is not better when it blooms than when it is merely a bud; 

at each stage it is the same thing — a flower in the process of expressing its potential

 

What shall i say of these save that they too stand in the sunlight, 

but with their backs to the sun?

They see only their shadows, 

and their shadows are their laws

 

love and despair stood between us like two ghosts,

one weeping and the other laughing hideously

 

People are never satisfied. 

If they have a little, they want more.

 If they have a lot, they want still more. 

Once they have more, they wish they could be happy with little, 

but are incapable of making the slightest effort in that direction.

 

...and there you have it,

another body on the floor

surrounded by things that don't mean much to anyone

except to the one who can't take any of them along.

 

We are always trying to convert people to a belief in our own explanation of the universe. 

We think that the more people there are who believe as we do, the more certain it will be that what we believe is the truth. 

But it doesn't work that way at all.

 

Each human being is unique, each with their own qualities, instincts, forms of pleasure, and desire for adventure. 

However, society always imposes on us a collective way of behaving, and people never stop to wonder why they should behave like that. 

They just accept it, the way typists accepted the fact that the QWERTY keyboard was the best possible one.

 Have you ever met anyone in your entire life who asked why the hands of a clock should go in one particular direction and not in the other

 

confronted by temptation, we will always fall. 

Given the right circumstances, 

every human being on this earth would be willing to commit evil

 

I still get nightmares.

In fact, I get them so often I should be used to them by now.

I'm not.

No one ever really gets used to nightmares.

 

 there is only the present moment, the now. 

You can't measure time the way you measure the distance between two points. 

'Time' doesn't pass. 

 human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; 

 always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, 

about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn't act as we should have. 

Or else we think about the future, about what we're going to do tomorrow, 

what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, 

how to avoid what we don't want

 and how to get what we have always dreamed of.

 

If you're only killing time then it will kill you right back 

 

Do something instead of killing time. 

Because time is killing you.

Pencil

 

First quality: 

you are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps. 

We call that hand God, and He always guides us according to His will.’

‘Second quality: 

now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpener. 

That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he’s much sharper. 

So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.

‘Third quality: 

the pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes.

 This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.’

‘Fourth quality: 

what really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. 

So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.’

‘Finally, the pencil’s fifth quality: 

it always leaves a mark. 

in just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action

 

Is not the beautiful moon, that inspires poets,

 the same moon which angers the silence of the sea with a terrible roar?

 

A rose dreams of enjoying the company of bees, but none appears. The sun asks:

“Aren’t you tired of waiting?”

“Yes,” answers the rose, “but if I close my petals, I will wither and die.

 

The secret is here in the present. 

If you pay attention to the present, 

you can improve upon it. 

And, if you improve on the present

, what comes later will also be better

 

The Marquis De Sade said that the most important experiences a man can have are those that take him to the very limit

 

The feelings we live through
in love and in loneliness
are simply, for us,
what high tide
and low tide are to the sea.

 

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountaintop,then you shall begin to climb.

And when the earth shall claim your limbs,then shall you truly dance

 

The mirror reflects perfectly;

 it makes no mistakes because it doesn't think. 

To think is to make mistakes.

 

Scars speak more loudly than the sword that caused them

 

Intense, unexpected suffering passes more quickly 

than suffering that is apparently bearable; 

the latter goes on for years and, without our noticing, eats away at our souls, 

until, one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves from the bitterness 

and it stays with us for the rest of our lives

 

The book is a film that takes place in the mind of the reader. 

That's why we go to movies and say, "Oh, the book is better.

 

Darkness is impossible to remember.

Consequently cavers desire to return to those unseen depths where they have just been.

It is an addiction. No one is ever satisfied. Darkness never satisfies.

Especially if it takes something away which it almost always invariably does.

 

Under the cover of darkness people do things they'd never do under the harsh glare of day.

 Decisions feel wiser. People feel bolder. 

But when the sun rises, you have to take responsibility for what you did in the dark.

 And face yourself under the cold, harsh light of day.

 

If you reveal your secrets to the wind,
you should not blame the wind for
revealing them to the trees

 

Jesus waited three days to come back to life. 

It was perfect

 If he had only waited one day, a lot of people wouldn't have even heard he died. 

They'd be all, "Hey Jesus, what up?" and Jesus would probably be like, "What up? I died yesterday!" and they'd be all, "Uh, you look pretty alive to me, dude..." and then Jesus would have to explain how he was resurrected, and how it was a miracle, and the dude'd be like "Uhh okay, whatever you say, bro..." 

And he's not gonna come back on a Saturday. Everybody's busy, doing chores, workin' the loom, trimmin' the beard,

 NO. He waited the perfect number of days, three. 

Plus it's Sunday, so everyone's in church already, 

and they're all in there like "Oh no, Jesus is dead", and then BAM! He bursts in the back door, runnin' up the aisle, everyone's totally psyched, and FYI, that's when he invented the high five. 

Easter Poem (for John Cotton), by Ted Walker

I had gone on Easter Day

early and alone 

to be beyond insidious bells

(that any other Sunday I’d not hear) 

up to the hills

where are winds 

to blow away commination. 

In the frail first light 

I saw him, 

unreal and sudden 

through lifting mist,

a fox on a barn door, 

nailed

like a coloured plaster Christ

in a Spanish shrine, 

his tail coiled around his loins.

 Sideways

his head hung limply, 

his ears

snagged with burdock, 

his dry nose

plugged with black blood. 

For two days

he’d held the orthodox pose.

The endemic English noise 

of Easter Sunday morning

was mixed with the mist swirling

and might have moved his stiff head.

Under the hill 

the ringing had begun. 

As the sun rose red

to press on 

seemed the best thing.

I walked the length 

of the day’s obsession.

 At dusk 

I was swallowed by the misted barn,

sucked by the peristalsis

of my fear 

that he had gone,

leaving nails for souvenirs.

But he was there still. 

I saw

no sign. 

He hung as before.

Only the wind had risen

to comb the thorns from his fur.

I left my superstition

stretched on the banging barn door.

Sun 5 Apr 2026 Easter

Lent ends with Easter Sunday

 

 Lent ends with Easter Sunday 

the day Christians celebrate Jesus rising from the dead

Easter Sunday

 

Easter Poem - Fox On A Barn Door

I had gone on Easter Day

early and alone

to be beyond insidious bells

(that any other Sunday I’d not hear) 

up to the hills

where are winds 

to blow away commination. 

In the frail first light I saw him, 

unreal and sudden 

through lifting mist,

a fox on a barn door, 

nailed 

like a coloured plaster Christ

in a Spanish shrine, 

his tail coiled around his loins.

Sideways his head hung limply, 

his ears snagged with burdock, 

his dry nose plugged with black blood. 

For two days he’d held the orthodox pose.

The endemic English noise of Easter Sunday morning

was mixed with the mist swirling

and might have moved his stiff head.

Under the hill 

the ringing had begun. 

As the sun rose red 

on the stains of his bleeding

to press on seemed the best thing.

I walked the length of the day’s obsession.

At dusk I was swallowed by the misted barn,

sucked by the peristalsis of my fear that he had gone,

leaving nails for souvenirs.

But he was there still. 

I saw no sign. 

He hung as before.

Only the wind had risen

to comb the thorns from his fur.

I left my superstition 

stretched on the banging barn door.

 

Happiness: 

The smell of cordite always makes her think of the fourth of July

Vassago: Happiness Is a Warm Gun Song by Tori Amos

Vassago: happiness is a warm gun

Vassago: Happiness Is a Warm Gun Song by The Beatles

 

Strange Little Girl: 

Whenever it rains you think of her

while the titular character has dramatic eye makeup, a shag cut, and a shirt that says, "Satin Worship." 

The album's namesake song — and most upbeat, straightforward musical moment, as it features tumbleweed keyboards — is "Strange Little Girl."

 The 1982 single by the Stranglers featuring a protagonist who's figuratively lost and trying to find her place in the world: 

"Strange little girl / 

Where are you going? / 

Do you know where you could be going?" 

The word "strange" is an interesting one to describe a person. 

The term isn't always wielded as a compliment; in fact, it's a verbal side-eye to convention. "Strange" is a close relation to "peculiar," another vaguely antique-sounding words that connotes someone who's offbeat and different.

 That Amos called the album "Strange Little Girls" — plural — is even more telling: These are a collection of offbeat people who don't fit into any sort of neat, tidy mold.

Vassago: Strange Little Girl

Vassago: Strange Little Girl Song by The Stranglers