Sunday, May 20, 2012

Rachel Naomi Remen

              

 

My story began about eight thousand years ago when the goddess Cybele was worshiped in Turkey.

 

Then in October 2011 I was walking from Xanthos to Latoon and benighted slept on the dry bank of the river. At dawn I arrived at Latoon where the ancient goddess Leto and her daughter Artemis were worshiped.  Zeus was the father and his angry wife Hera had chased Leto to Turkey.

 

A few miles further and I was walking for an hour along this deserted Mediterranean beach.

 

At the end of the beach I met a Canadian couple. She recommended a lovely little farm at Gavuragth to spend the night. They had just come from there. She was a modest young lady and worked counselling the dying. Very relaxed we talked for some time about her work. I later read a book she recommended by Kubler Ross, ‘Death and Dying’, but today I looked in my notebook and for the first time found her own story, ‘Kitchen Table Wisdom’ on the internet.

 

http://rachelremen.com/ktw.html

“All stories are full of bias and uniqueness, they mix fact with meaning, they are more real than right. This is the root of their power. Stories allow us to see something familiar through new eyes. We become in that moment a guest in someone else's life, and together with them sit at the feet of their teacher. The meaning we may draw from someone's story may be different from the meaning they themselves have drawn. No matter. Facts bring us to knowledge, but stories lead to wisdom.

The best stories have many meanings; their meaning changes as our capacity to understand and appreciate meaning grows. Revisiting such stories over the years, one wonders how one could not have seen their present meaning all along, all the time unaware of what meaning a future reading may hold. Like the stories themselves, all these meanings are true.”

That night at Gavuragth I was delighted with my hospitality. They spoke no English and I was as happy as in paradise. Now months later I’m delighted to to have been a guest in the same house as Rachel Naomi Remen. I will order her book.

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Sunday, May 13, 2012

Ten Thousand Faces

Friday, May 11, 2012

Going home

 

From the bell rock the Tao chimes,

‘Away’

 

Cherry blossom swirls

from an ocean of song.

 

The wake shrinks and fades.

Rhum and Skye pass Starboard,

 

But to Port a shining, widening way leads to the horizon,

most brilliant.

 

Going home.

 

 

  

 

 

Rhum and Skye are Scottish islands. They crumble and are washed away.