Changeling Child

Fantasy

Over there, a mountain side

billowing over a timeless pride

a valley, full of wisps and sighs

each flower an ear

each leaf an eye

.

The sun does not set here

forever, the full moon bright and sheer

will expel the living of their fear

the light-filled twins

share a darkened sky

.

I sat down amongst it all

my mind swaying, a graceful fall

settled within this imagined world

my head a blur

my heart a whirl

Hold me over a rainbow

Hold me over the tearful seas

Hear the blackbird calling

Calling through the breeze

Any quotes about night and stars, please? ✨

"The night is shaped like a howling wolf."

— Alejandra Pizarnik, Extracting the Stone of Madness; from ‘Paths of the Mirror’, tr. Yvette Siegert

"Then, it being night, and the twin stars of Castor and Pollux just visible in the sky, I spoke of that tragedy, of two brothers whose love we might find unnatural, so stricken in grief when one was killed that the other, begging for his life again, accepted instead that for half the year one might live, and for the rest of the year the other, but never the two together. So it is for us, who while on earth in these suits of lead sense the presence of one we love, not far away but too far to touch."

— Jeanette Winterson, from 'Sexing the Cherry'

"The night is cold and delicate and full of angels"

— John Ashbery, Rivers and Mountains; from ‘The Ecclesiast’

"Oh starry starry night! This is how / I want to die."

— Anne Sexton, All My Pretty Ones; from ‘The Starry Night’

"Life is too short to be all daylight. Night is not less; it’s more."

—Jeanette Winterson, from 'Why I adore the night'

"…a strange night-time otherworld of darkness and starlight and the fine line between life and death."

— Katherine Clements, from 'The Coffin Path'

"But the Orphics say that black-winged Night, a goddess of whom even Zeus stands in awe, was courted by the Wind and laid a silver egg in the womb of Darkness; and that Eros, whom some call Phanes, was hatched from this egg and set the Universe in motion."

—Robert Graves, from 'The Greek Myths: The Complete and Definitive Edition'

"That doesn’t stop me having a tremendous need for, shall I say the word — for religion — so I go outside at night to paint the stars [...]"

— Vincent van Gogh

"Night. Such a beautiful word."

— Janet Fitch, from 'Chimes of a Lost Cathedral'

"Why shun darkness? / The night abounds with diamond drops."

— Forugh Farrokhzad, Asir (Captive); from 'On Loving', tr. Sholeh Wolpé

"Dear, though the night is gone, / Its dream still haunts to-day,"

— W. H. Auden, Selected Poems; from ‘Dear, though the night is gone’

"There was a star riding through clouds one night, and I said to the star, "Consume me."

"I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams."

— Virginia Woolf, from 'The Waves'

"By day I am nothing, by night I am myself."

Fernando Pessoa, from 'The Book of Disquiet', tr. Margaret Jull Costa

"...the frozen glitter of stars, shattered glass on black silk..."

— Maggie O' Farrell, from 'Hamnet'

"I sometimes fancy that my body is made up of all the different stars. Leo’s in my chest; I’m sure it’s Leo because my heart roars."

— Jeanette Winterson, from 'Boating for Beginners'

"Night, the night again, the magisterial wisdom of the dark."

— Alejandra Pizarnik, A Musical Hell; from ‘Desire for the Word’, tr. Yvette Siegert

"If only at the midnight hour / You’d send me a greeting across the stars."

— Anna Akhmatova, Seventh Book; from Sweetbrier In Blossom; ‘In a Dream’, tr. Judith Hemschemeyer

"Under the shield of night, / let me unburden the moon."

— Forugh Farrokhzad, Reborn; from ‘Border Walls’, tr. Sholeh Wolpé

"The night snows stars and the earth creaks."

— Ted Hughes, Wodwo; from ‘The Howling of Wolves’

I ache for the world and I run away from it

On Existence and the Human Experience.

Joseph Campbell, “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth”, Ep. 4, “Sacrifice and Bliss” / Louise Glück, “Snowdrops” / Ellen Bass, “The Thing Is” / @obeliskandmetronome​ / Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov” / Maggie Stiefvater, “Blue Lily, Lily Blue” / Eve L. Ewing, “Testify”

'First, it means that you will be happy if you are doing your thing -- not necessarily achieving excellence, simply reaching for it -- in a life that allows you to do so. But, it also means that happiness is something we all deliver to ourselves.'

open.substack.com

Only Lisa can make Lisa happy

Norman Lear offers some words of advice to a stranger

Midsummer

I feel laden with unsaid dreams

spilling over my hair, my feet

walking through a daylit night

full of sparkling stars and troubled sleep

Some small things in this world that I like and am very grateful for #1

Ice

Slipper socks

Sun umbrellas

“I desired always to stretch the night and fill it fuller and fuller with dreams.”

— Virginia Woolf, from ‘The Waves’

You storm away without a backward glance

only troubled minds seek paradise

an escape to a better world 

far from circumstance

you whisper to yourself at night

clearing tear-tracked eyes, a haunted sight

I see you now through the mirror glass

cursing what blocks your well-trodden path