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Naivety by Andre Platteel , April 27th

She was raised in a family with three brothers, all very talented. She was probably the most talented of them all, but also the most modest. She studied philosophy and sociology. She knew ‘just a little bit’ about people and mankind, to use her own words. They would discuss these things at dinner. Meals were consumed amidst an accompaniment of always-sweet opinions, and the opportunity for everyone to say what they had to say. Every member of the family was – or at least felt – politically active: they protested against war, they were vegetarian, and they donated part of their wealth to the poor and needy. When they watched a film, almost always together, they tried to read a critical social or cultural allegory into it. They wanted to see justice in what they had just seen. The books they read – all of them tender intellectual interjections – were widely praised in highly regarded newspapers, so the idea that they might not be making the best use of their time never had an opportunity to come to mind. In the midst of all this intellectual tumult, she had a secret. She adored a little book she had found years ago, one filled with wisdom the mind cannot reach. In the few moments that she was away from her warm nest, she read and practiced what the author wrote about, determined to reach a state far beyond the intellectual. She prayed and chanted. She hungered for the light she was reading about. The more she practiced the more she felt her ground shaking. She no longer + more She was raised in a family with three brothers, all very talented. She was probably the most talented of them all, but also the most modest. She studied philosophy and sociology. She knew ‘just a little bit’ about people and mankind, to use her own words. They would discuss these things at dinner. Meals were consumed amidst an accompaniment of always-sweet opinions, and the opportunity for everyone to say what they had to say. Every member of the family was – or at least felt – politically active: they protested against war, they were vegetarian, and they donated part of their wealth to the poor and needy. When they watched a film, almost always together, they tried to read a critical social or cultural allegory into it. They wanted to see justice in what they had just seen. The books they read – all of them tender intellectual interjections – were widely praised in highly regarded newspapers, so the idea that they might not be making the best use of their time never had an opportunity to come to mind. In the midst of all this intellectual tumult, she had a secret. She adored a little book she had found years ago, one filled with wisdom the mind cannot reach. In the few moments that she was away from her warm nest, she read and practiced what the author wrote about, determined to reach a state far beyond the intellectual. She prayed and chanted. She hungered for the light she was reading about. The more she practiced the more she felt her ground shaking. She no longer criticised war but became sick of wars and aggression. She no longer wanted to read newspapers. She closed her eyes and ears to television. She could not bear to see strangers arguing or people being unfriendly, and her disgust made her also a bit happy, perceiving it as a signal of wanting to live differently – wanting to be different. She judged her intellectual capacity as something untrue or even impure. She hated those who strived to gain as much material wealth as possible, failing to see the parallels in her pursuit of maximum spiritual wealth. She wanted to be like Jesus but acted like Moses: always searching for a connection to God, forgetting that you cannot search for Him. Her skin became pale. Her aliveness disappeared. She hungered for love while being at war with herself and all that lives. - less tagged:   light   untrue   aliveness    permalink  read: 1991  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: André Platteel

Mother of all memories by Andre Platteel , June 1st

It was almost finished: the detailed model of the memory he had spent the last few years searching for. A search begun after a short but terrifying moment one particular night (a night thus far unmemorable). The night had gone something like this: woke up; realized the reason he had woken up was a lack of breath; reached for oxygen that his body failed to absorb; opened his mouth only to find nothing there, nothing that was willing to fill his lungs; noticed he had left his body and saw himself choking into nothingness, just white, recently washed sheets around him. And then, out of nowhere, something, a little sound (he thought), or at least something that sounded like a sound, something not so trivial, a vivid but veiled memory that made life flow again. That which had brought life back into him had not only brought back his body; his body was brought back into something, something full and sweet, something he knew he knew, but was forgotten. He became obsessed with the sweetness and fullness he felt connected with, something that he called ‘it’. Immediately the same night, the night now made memorable due to what had happened, he crammed his ideas and thoughts about what ‘it’ could be onto small, sticky pieces of yellow paper. He was tracing ‘it’ and felt how he was coming closer and closer to knowing it. There were moments when he thought he would embrace what he was looking for in a split second, something ‘just around the corner’. But always, the thing he was chasing found a way to escape. The harder he tried the more he seemed to forget what ‘it’ exactly was all about. He changed his strategies; he surrounded ‘it’ carefully and peeled the mystery from the thing he wanted to know so obsessively. That’s actually how the idea of a model began. Since ‘it’ had hit a memory deep inside him, ‘it’ had to be something in his brain, he thought. He created a copy of his brain with its collective memories represented by the sticky yellow notes, by images he had drawn or torn out of magazines, and by sounds he had collected. Sometimes (almost always when he was not so busy chasing) images entered his mind that resonated with ‘it’. He wrote them down and stuck them into his model: jigsaw pieces of a puzzle soon to be whole. + more It was almost finished: the detailed model of the memory he had spent the last few years searching for. A search begun after a short but terrifying moment one particular night (a night thus far unmemorable). The night had gone something like this: woke up; realized the reason he had woken up was a lack of breath; reached for oxygen that his body failed to absorb; opened his mouth only to find nothing there, nothing that was willing to fill his lungs; noticed he had left his body and saw himself choking into nothingness, just white, recently washed sheets around him. And then, out of nowhere, something, a little sound (he thought), or at least something that sounded like a sound, something not so trivial, a vivid but veiled memory that made life flow again. That which had brought life back into him had not only brought back his body; his body was brought back into something, something full and sweet, something he knew he knew, but was forgotten. He became obsessed with the sweetness and fullness he felt connected with, something that he called ‘it’. Immediately the same night, the night now made memorable due to what had happened, he crammed his ideas and thoughts about what ‘it’ could be onto small, sticky pieces of yellow paper. He was tracing ‘it’ and felt how he was coming closer and closer to knowing it. There were moments when he thought he would embrace what he was looking for in a split second, something ‘just around the corner’. But always, the thing he was chasing found a way to escape. The harder he tried the more he seemed to forget what ‘it’ exactly was all about. He changed his strategies; he surrounded ‘it’ carefully and peeled the mystery from the thing he wanted to know so obsessively. That’s actually how the idea of a model began. Since ‘it’ had hit a memory deep inside him, ‘it’ had to be something in his brain, he thought. He created a copy of his brain with its collective memories represented by the sticky yellow notes, by images he had drawn or torn out of magazines, and by sounds he had collected. Sometimes (almost always when he was not so busy chasing) images entered his mind that resonated with ‘it’. He wrote them down and stuck them into his model: jigsaw pieces of a puzzle soon to be whole. One night, a night when sleep would not come, he went downstairs, switched on the light of a room that was once his office space but which now provided space for the model that had outgrown the size of his brain by at least twenty times. He saw how the light brought life to the fragments and realized, out of nowhere, that all the different pieces could never unravel the memory he was so obsessed with. All these fragments could never add up to what he was seeking. How could he have thought that he would discover the totality of ‘it’ by isolating fragments, by analysing memories? Not a single piece of what he had gathered said anything about what was so important to him. Every connection he had tried to make, every effort to connect two or more fragments together, had created only the idea of something that was about to become whole. He had been tracing something that could never be revealed by assembling fragments to serve as a manual. And yet it did. He was about to leave the room when, for no particular reason, he turned back with an almost unnatural faithfulness. He flicked the light on again and saw how his model of many fragments had come alive. It could have been something about the artificial light, or the sleep that was about to knock him out, but he saw how the fragments not only told their own story, he saw ‘it’ in every fragment. ‘It’ was not a particular memory; ‘it’ was omnipresent. He saw how his model became a hologram, 'it' being present in all the different parts of his model. And fragments he had not connected became connected by ‘it’. He turned off the light again, went to sleep and dreamed about what he had seen. He knew that what he had seen was something that can never been seen by the eye, and yet is present in everything we see. He slept well that night, heard the sound of light, and felt how the memory that is embedded in everything made all memories come home. - less tagged:   light   spaciousness   connectedness   life   Body   mind   memory    permalink  read: 7073  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

The three voices by Andre Platteel , March 13th

And you stand on that mountain overlooking a sandless desert, hearing three female voices while a man in white walks up towards you from a place without time. It took a while for you to get there; and it takes a while for you to hear what is being sung to you. Step by step, the white-clad man draws nearer, a strong branch in his right hand to help him climb higher. He holds all time in his left hand. And in the fluorescent light of his eyes you read something vaguely familiar, something unsheltered and fierce. You feel like a newly born, reaching out to these voices. How many steps does it require for you to grasp the words that are longing so hard to reach your ears and caress your heart? You know it takes just one false step to fall from this mountain. “Dive into the infinite sandless desert!” a voice inside you commands. “That little river, crawling upwards, will carry you like a drop of rain returning to its source.” You are on the point of answering this devastating command. But just before you do, you remember the last time you were thirsty, and how drops of water created an invisible thread connecting you with everything that is, enabling you to understand how God could create Heaven and Earth in an instant. It was not the first thing He created. It is what is being created all the time. Some small stones lose the spot they had regarded as their home for centuries. A porcelain face draws near. The white cloth appears to be a dressing gown, nothing but a dressing gown, the name of an unknown hotel embossed on the left side, at breast height. Bare feet. You have been warned about him. He throws his branch into Earth’s gaping wound. As it falls, the air becomes electric, making the three female voices stronger. He opens his arms and before you know, before you know it is happening, the two of you become entwined. One. He is huge. It is almost impossible to wrap your arms around his waist; you have difficulty balancing, but the moment your feet remember the holy ground you feel like a spring flower – rooted and ready to blossom. His long grey hair is reaching out to your hands. Knowing that you grow younger with every breath you take in this position, he whispers something in your ear: “Silence never moves.” And: “Your heart: see what is happening within.” + more And you stand on that mountain overlooking a sandless desert, hearing three female voices while a man in white walks up towards you from a place without time. It took a while for you to get there; and it takes a while for you to hear what is being sung to you. Step by step, the white-clad man draws nearer, a strong branch in his right hand to help him climb higher. He holds all time in his left hand. And in the fluorescent light of his eyes you read something vaguely familiar, something unsheltered and fierce. You feel like a newly born, reaching out to these voices. How many steps does it require for you to grasp the words that are longing so hard to reach your ears and caress your heart? You know it takes just one false step to fall from this mountain. “Dive into the infinite sandless desert!” a voice inside you commands. “That little river, crawling upwards, will carry you like a drop of rain returning to its source.” You are on the point of answering this devastating command. But just before you do, you remember the last time you were thirsty, and how drops of water created an invisible thread connecting you with everything that is, enabling you to understand how God could create Heaven and Earth in an instant. It was not the first thing He created. It is what is being created all the time. Some small stones lose the spot they had regarded as their home for centuries. A porcelain face draws near. The white cloth appears to be a dressing gown, nothing but a dressing gown, the name of an unknown hotel embossed on the left side, at breast height. Bare feet. You have been warned about him. He throws his branch into Earth’s gaping wound. As it falls, the air becomes electric, making the three female voices stronger. He opens his arms and before you know, before you know it is happening, the two of you become entwined. One. He is huge. It is almost impossible to wrap your arms around his waist; you have difficulty balancing, but the moment your feet remember the holy ground you feel like a spring flower – rooted and ready to blossom. His long grey hair is reaching out to your hands. Knowing that you grow younger with every breath you take in this position, he whispers something in your ear: “Silence never moves.” And: “Your heart: see what is happening within.” And you look into your heart and you see a big bird hovering above an infinite sandless desert, searching for voices. And you open your eyes and see the bird. Big wings, strong feathers. It finds the three voices, which have gathered around a fire. The bird lands and decides to sit beside them. The weakest voice picks up the bird and throws it in the air. The bird returns. It is picked up again. And directed to leave this place. An order. The bird returns. Sometimes it is like this; sometimes something does not want to obey. The three voices start singing. Something inside the bird moves. It hesitates. It is not in its nature to hesitate. A loud cry, the spreading of wings: the bird leaves. And tries to find its way in the air. The fog between the three voices and you disappears. You hear what they were singing to the bird; you finally hear what it is the voices are trying to tell you: “Here I am, Here I am, Waiting to hold you.” The singing leaves you puzzled, like a new born: Shall you stay in this tangle with the big white-clad man, or jump to get even closer to the voices? The man with fluorescent eyes whispers, very slowly: “I am holding my mirror.” And you hear how his words come home in you, beyond any horizon. Looking into the light of his eyes you remember again why you were warned about meeting him: No step has to be taken. No step is needed to hear the voices more fully. And you speak without words. And you walk without moving. And you follow the three voices to their source. You hold yourself close to the light of your heart. - less tagged:   voices   God   light   singing   bird   heart    permalink  read: 8083  print  forward  comments: 1  add comment      name:  Daniel, March 13th • dit raakt een deel in mij dat niet letterlijk benaderd kan worden, alleen in gesluierde taal. Ik wordt er wakker van, bewust van mijn keuzevrijheid in... + more Daniel, March 13th • dit raakt een deel in mij dat niet letterlijk benaderd kan worden, alleen in gesluierde taal. Ik wordt er wakker van, bewust van mijn keuzevrijheid in elk moment. - less

Photo: André Platteel

Born to adore This by Andre Platteel , January 17th

My body is dancing To allow me to become awake To another world What makes difference in what ever stays the same? My body is crying For morning light In everything, in every heart What light makes all eyes turn wide open? My body is wandering In rivers that never reach their ends When it is simply circular, Where do waves return to? My body is opening To a secret that we know That we don't know how to talk about Can you have mercy for all that we don't know? My body is becoming All that I experience You are all that I am How does it feel to be a walking mountain? tagged:   body   love   light    permalink  read: 7314  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: André Platteel

Listen carefully by Andre Platteel , December 22nd

An almost silent city. Still dark. Numb early morning. My breath becomes visible. The humming sound of a motor. A grand piano hanging in the air. I have dreamed of playing the piano for a long time. And fallen in love with an old Bechstein that a crane is now lifting into my house. I’ve spent the last few minutes watching the piano being readied, the hook attached, and now I see it ascending into the air. Some excitement. A few neighbours join me to watch, still sleepy. Suddenly my eyes see a different picture: no longer the piano hanging in the air, but me. I see my feet dangling in the air, trying to find solid ground; I see my arms tied up so that nothing can escape from my hands; and I see how my voice tries to make words, unintelligible. Am I half sleeping, or was I? Soon, I will own a great instrument. But instead of happiness, fear invades me. I feel panic. Am I afraid of owning something that big? Am I afraid of all the learning that needs to happen before I can actually play? But why this sadness? And why does this heaviness feel so big? All the feelings that don’t fit this moment burst open. The ground is disappearing. I have no clue what is going on. My skin feels like paper. I watch myself becoming more and more distant. My world seems to collapse. It is slipping through my fingers, like silence. A few days go by. I’ve touched the piano for only a few minutes. The bass is intense. The higher tones too shrill. The sounds resonate with something I fear. I know it is not just a tune. Whatever it is that is being touched, it is strong enough to destroy me. If I hold my breath, I can hear it inside me. It has all the time in the world, been there for such a long time. The roaring. It just waits, like a sniper picking his moment. I try to shape what happens to me when I am not asleep; the nights are needed too. The light that separates night and day has been broken. There seems only to be darkness. I am sucked into a black hole made of different fragments of darkness. Who pushed the ‘on’ button of this crazy particle machine inside me? After a few days I feel desperate: What the hell is going on with me? My strength is ebbing. My heart tries to douse the fire. Without success. My skin bursts. No blood, but water. Unstoppable. Like a weak little boy. I feel spoilt: I, who has everything, what gives me the right to feel this way? Wake up! Be strong! Enjoy! But I can’t. + more An almost silent city. Still dark. Numb early morning. My breath becomes visible. The humming sound of a motor. A grand piano hanging in the air. I have dreamed of playing the piano for a long time. And fallen in love with an old Bechstein that a crane is now lifting into my house. I’ve spent the last few minutes watching the piano being readied, the hook attached, and now I see it ascending into the air. Some excitement. A few neighbours join me to watch, still sleepy. Suddenly my eyes see a different picture: no longer the piano hanging in the air, but me. I see my feet dangling in the air, trying to find solid ground; I see my arms tied up so that nothing can escape from my hands; and I see how my voice tries to make words, unintelligible. Am I half sleeping, or was I? Soon, I will own a great instrument. But instead of happiness, fear invades me. I feel panic. Am I afraid of owning something that big? Am I afraid of all the learning that needs to happen before I can actually play? But why this sadness? And why does this heaviness feel so big? All the feelings that don’t fit this moment burst open. The ground is disappearing. I have no clue what is going on. My skin feels like paper. I watch myself becoming more and more distant. My world seems to collapse. It is slipping through my fingers, like silence. A few days go by. I’ve touched the piano for only a few minutes. The bass is intense. The higher tones too shrill. The sounds resonate with something I fear. I know it is not just a tune. Whatever it is that is being touched, it is strong enough to destroy me. If I hold my breath, I can hear it inside me. It has all the time in the world, been there for such a long time. The roaring. It just waits, like a sniper picking his moment. I try to shape what happens to me when I am not asleep; the nights are needed too. The light that separates night and day has been broken. There seems only to be darkness. I am sucked into a black hole made of different fragments of darkness. Who pushed the ‘on’ button of this crazy particle machine inside me? After a few days I feel desperate: What the hell is going on with me? My strength is ebbing. My heart tries to douse the fire. Without success. My skin bursts. No blood, but water. Unstoppable. Like a weak little boy. I feel spoilt: I, who has everything, what gives me the right to feel this way? Wake up! Be strong! Enjoy! But I can’t. I am flooded with memories, memories that have stayed with me for centuries. I knew of their existence, and I knew of my escape strategies to avoid encountering them. It’s as if the postman has delivered letters from the past that have never been properly read. Now I get them all at once: quite a stack. Read them. Feel them. Be them. The postman watches me doing so, carefully, with complete awareness. Tarnished memories enter the present. Hidden scars start bleeding. Sounds, smells, a touch: I notice them for the first time, now part of ‘then’. Once I am really at one with the memories, they die. And those that died in the memory long ago are finally dying too. More panic. How to let go of something you love so much? I call my father. For the first time in my life, I call my father in a state of sadness. I don’t answer the familiar ‘how are you’ with the usual reassuring words, but with something that has wanted to be heard for such a long time; a strange sound that seems to ask: ‘be my father’. And although that sound can’t be found in a dictionary, he understands what I am asking for, and answers in a way that’s of no real use to me. But I hear something of value in it all the same. For he answers like a father. And for the first time in my adult life, I feel how it is to be his son. A first, fresh chalk line on a blackboard. White. Clear. A few hours later a friend calls, a friend that always calls at the right moment. This ‘dying’, he says, must be goodness, since there is only goodness. What is dying was illusion. What is being born must be goodness. His words make me remember that a black hole is actually not dark inside. A black hole doesn’t release light, and so seems to be dark. But inside, it is full of light. A black hole is actually made of light. What a great instrument, this old grand piano. - less tagged:   Bechstein   father   light   awareness   darkness   blackhole   memories   goodness    permalink  read: 6828  print  forward  comments: 1  add comment      name:  Jerome, December 28th • Mooi stukje...Laat 'm je beste vriend worden.

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

A fragment of a circle by Andre Platteel , October 3rd

I haven’t seen him for quite some time, although our blood is the same and his hidden scars are no doubt to be found within me too. He drinks coffee; I drink tea, just a block away from where I live. He eats a chocolate cake, fast, as if he is afraid to really taste what he eats. Fastness, there has always been this fastness with him: no time to tune our hearts, ever. Now that he’s becoming older, fastness manifest itself as unease. He has his black leather jacket on, zipped, ready to leave any minute, although another coffee is on its way. I watch his lips turning dark brown, and take a sip of my tea; salty-tasting water. He dyes his hair dark ever since a few of them turned grey, covering the aging that would actually suit him so well. Although I’m watching his lips, I suddenly see that he is dressed completely in black. I can barely remember him in colours. And with that vague memory, the past suddenly arrives as a hole between us, our conversation disappearing into its nothingness. No words left to say ‘after’. Our jaws are muddy, having difficulties digesting the past. He is dying of something that he had hoped to live longer. My mind is full of anger, screaming ‘how could you ever’. I turned what I loved into light again And God wrote in the air about love first, death His kitchen full of white The sea so blue Impossible to know where it all begins He looks at me and talks through a mouth full of chocolate. And although his tongue speaks words that disappear before they reach my ears, I hear his voice reaching out to me, trying to tell me what my heart already knows: that he couldn’t have done it differently. His voice and my knowing, holds me fast. When the world screams for peace, there can still be war Between ‘then’ and now it is dark And for it to become bright The world that we hold between us, needs to leak Its anger and tears For years I have wanted to really meet him; confused by the idea that there was something in him still to be discovered, that somewhere deep in his heart there could be something more true than what I had encountered. But this is all what he is, and all what I am: this ‘thisness’, right now. The search for someone different made the hole bigger. And this thisness is much more than my ideas of him. “When are you going to marry?” he asks me, chocolate still covering his lips. I am surprised. It is such a sweet question. “I would love to see you get married to her.” + more I haven’t seen him for quite some time, although our blood is the same and his hidden scars are no doubt to be found within me too. He drinks coffee; I drink tea, just a block away from where I live. He eats a chocolate cake, fast, as if he is afraid to really taste what he eats. Fastness, there has always been this fastness with him: no time to tune our hearts, ever. Now that he’s becoming older, fastness manifest itself as unease. He has his black leather jacket on, zipped, ready to leave any minute, although another coffee is on its way. I watch his lips turning dark brown, and take a sip of my tea; salty-tasting water. He dyes his hair dark ever since a few of them turned grey, covering the aging that would actually suit him so well. Although I’m watching his lips, I suddenly see that he is dressed completely in black. I can barely remember him in colours. And with that vague memory, the past suddenly arrives as a hole between us, our conversation disappearing into its nothingness. No words left to say ‘after’. Our jaws are muddy, having difficulties digesting the past. He is dying of something that he had hoped to live longer. My mind is full of anger, screaming ‘how could you ever’. I turned what I loved into light again And God wrote in the air about love first, death His kitchen full of white The sea so blue Impossible to know where it all begins He looks at me and talks through a mouth full of chocolate. And although his tongue speaks words that disappear before they reach my ears, I hear his voice reaching out to me, trying to tell me what my heart already knows: that he couldn’t have done it differently. His voice and my knowing, holds me fast. When the world screams for peace, there can still be war Between ‘then’ and now it is dark And for it to become bright The world that we hold between us, needs to leak Its anger and tears For years I have wanted to really meet him; confused by the idea that there was something in him still to be discovered, that somewhere deep in his heart there could be something more true than what I had encountered. But this is all what he is, and all what I am: this ‘thisness’, right now. The search for someone different made the hole bigger. And this thisness is much more than my ideas of him. “When are you going to marry?” he asks me, chocolate still covering his lips. I am surprised. It is such a sweet question. “I would love to see you get married to her.” His words are the most old fashioned he ever spoke, the sounds the most lovely he ever gave me. I hold my breath and feel how he thaws something I was not aware of. Someone once told me that in ancient China parents helped their kids to build a house once the parents thought the kid was ready to live its own life, no matter what age. Helping to build a house was a way of imparting self-belief: this life is your life to be lived. He is a fragment of a circle I left to pick an apple from the tree On my way I found A snake It bit me and I screamed The circle round - less tagged:   father   light   circle   consciousness   God   love   wholeness   life    permalink  read: 8192  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: André Platteel

The hidden promise by Andre Platteel , August 6th

There were grass and trees on both sides of the railway, with stones between the railway and the greenery – a kind of a path but never meant to be used that way. I rode my bike twice alongside the tracks to go back and forth from my house to school. Both times during breaks. It was a dangerous route, but the shortest and the only possible means to be back in time for when school began again. One day someone came out of the bushes. He looked like a farmer. He had an axe in his hand and was shouting at me in a language I couldn’t understand. He came after me, axe in the air. I peddled as hard as I could but the stones stopped me getting my speed up. His shouting grew louder and I raised my left arm to the heavens in surrender. But when I looked over my shoulder, there was no one to be seen anymore. I still heard his voice, the language still feeling unfamiliar. During the four years that I rode that route, I quite often heard bells ringing, announcing that a train would come along in just a few seconds. Somewhere, not far from me, barriers would come down to stop the traffic. I had to hide myself in the bushes, but I must have been visible to the train driver. A loud whistle blew me away. The draft caused by the speed of the train was so strong that I had to dig my feet into the mud. Via this route it took me twenty minutes to get home and twenty minutes to get back to school and lock my bike just before the bell rang to summon the kids back to class. I really never became friends with the other kids, because I never had time to actually meet and play with them. It didn’t matter if it rained, or snowed, I needed to go home during breaks for that one moment: when I knocked on the window of our house, I saw my mother looking surprised to see me (but I knew she was acting); we waved, she blew me a kiss, I laughed and felt light, and I rode back to school. When I got home from school for the day, we never talked about my short appearances in front of the window. And she never asked me not to come home during breaks; she knew those visits made going to school possible for me. I needed to see her as much as I could, as if every moment with her was precious. "I always thought of myself as a gypsy boy. But since she was my mother, I could never be too far away from home." “How much older was she than you are now,” he asks. “Two years.” + more There were grass and trees on both sides of the railway, with stones between the railway and the greenery – a kind of a path but never meant to be used that way. I rode my bike twice alongside the tracks to go back and forth from my house to school. Both times during breaks. It was a dangerous route, but the shortest and the only possible means to be back in time for when school began again. One day someone came out of the bushes. He looked like a farmer. He had an axe in his hand and was shouting at me in a language I couldn’t understand. He came after me, axe in the air. I peddled as hard as I could but the stones stopped me getting my speed up. His shouting grew louder and I raised my left arm to the heavens in surrender. But when I looked over my shoulder, there was no one to be seen anymore. I still heard his voice, the language still feeling unfamiliar. During the four years that I rode that route, I quite often heard bells ringing, announcing that a train would come along in just a few seconds. Somewhere, not far from me, barriers would come down to stop the traffic. I had to hide myself in the bushes, but I must have been visible to the train driver. A loud whistle blew me away. The draft caused by the speed of the train was so strong that I had to dig my feet into the mud. Via this route it took me twenty minutes to get home and twenty minutes to get back to school and lock my bike just before the bell rang to summon the kids back to class. I really never became friends with the other kids, because I never had time to actually meet and play with them. It didn’t matter if it rained, or snowed, I needed to go home during breaks for that one moment: when I knocked on the window of our house, I saw my mother looking surprised to see me (but I knew she was acting); we waved, she blew me a kiss, I laughed and felt light, and I rode back to school. When I got home from school for the day, we never talked about my short appearances in front of the window. And she never asked me not to come home during breaks; she knew those visits made going to school possible for me. I needed to see her as much as I could, as if every moment with her was precious. "I always thought of myself as a gypsy boy. But since she was my mother, I could never be too far away from home." “How much older was she than you are now,” he asks. “Two years.” It feels as if my body has not been my house for so long. I long to be in it. “Experience this,” he says. And without explaining what ‘this’ is, ‘this’ starts to take over my body. It is shaking, it is sweating, it is hurting, it is suffocating. It is said that Jesus cried when the nails went through his body. He experienced the pain. What is the cost of experiencing fully? Losing one’s body? “Is it my body that is shouting?” I ask him. “You know it is not your body, else you wouldn’t ask. It is a hidden promise within your body. It is your body becoming conscious of that hidden promise that does not belong in your body. It is your body relaxing to create an exit for the hidden promise. It is the hidden promise that does not want to leave because you have not become fully acquainted with it yet. Look the hidden promise in its eyes. See what it is.” I try to see. Its face is black like everything else. Something inside me is eating me like a lion. And it is roaring inside me. I was waiting for her outside when she came home from her first appointment with the doctor. She walked gracefully. I fainted. Blackness. Through the blackness it becomes slowly visible, this hidden promise. “Stay with it,” he says softly. “The darkness will also reveal its light in the end. And it will have a brightness in which every darkness can arise.” I see it through the darkness, the hidden promise. It has no name. It wants to prevent me from seeing that there is no need coming home to her. “Allow yourself to live beyond every border," I hear him saying. His lips do not move. The light, you know, it turns the darkeness into such a sweetness. - less tagged:   body   consciousness   brightnes   mother   light   home    permalink  read: 4956  print  forward  comments: 1  add comment      name:  Greta, August 6th • Your restraint is a wonderful thing. I want to know what happened to the mother, but also don't. Thank you.

Photo: André Platteel

What I am made of by Andre Platteel , March 6th

She’s standing on the corner of a quite street, her left hand shaking the liquid inside a little canister; she takes off the cap with her right hand, puts the cap in her pocket and, still using her right hand, begins sliding a small stick in and out of the container, soaping it with the liquid inside. She brings the stick to her mouth, and blows. Transparency, carried by the wind. Her eyes follow her newly created world, the stick still at her lips. No movement: it could ruin everything. There it goes, higher. Her eyes travel with it. At the far end of the street, someone is walking her way. But the strength of her belief makes him stop. Don’t interfere. Not now. She knows that the slightest doubt could make it collapse. The bubble has already been aloft for seconds. Her left hand holds the canister tighter, tighter: how strongly can you grip the source? Will it help – holding the source tightly – to prevent what it creates from disappearing? For no reason, the transparent world pops. There is no sadness: she is not a child anymore; she’s familiar with things disappearing. She covers the stick in liquid again and seconds later a new, even bigger transparent world is created. I walk up to her, clap my arm around her shoulder and feel her strong body through the soft wool of her sweater. Whatever she has borne has shaped her beautifully. She lets me have one go. “Blow.” And I do. I blow and create a world just by inhaling a little oxygen – a tiny quantity compared with what my lungs can hold – and letting it escape through my mouth. I am making something. “What do you want?” she asks. Her question jolts me. Three transparent worlds’ thinking time, a million pieces of wanting, all projected into the last transparent circle. “What do you really want?” The bubble collapses. The million pieces disappear. The wind has stopped. She was wearing a boat on her head when I met her. It had suddenly started raining. The ink of what had been a newspaper had almost disappeared. I was en route to nothing, she to everything. She was wearing red shoes; a bit quaint like the rest of what she had on, and just perfect. Three seconds – life started to course like a river knowing it is almost at the sea. “What you want is what created silence there.” She puts her finger into the little container, covers it in the liquid and draws a little heart on my forehead. Her fingers are long; short nails, and soft skin. The soapy water doesn’t smell particularly nice. It feels sticky. The spring sun slices through some clouds that are hanging motionless. We cross the street and enter a park. Trees in flower. Blood running everywhere. She has her arm around my shoulder now, and occasionally pinches my arm, as if she wants me to be conscious of her. + more She’s standing on the corner of a quite street, her left hand shaking the liquid inside a little canister; she takes off the cap with her right hand, puts the cap in her pocket and, still using her right hand, begins sliding a small stick in and out of the container, soaping it with the liquid inside. She brings the stick to her mouth, and blows. Transparency, carried by the wind. Her eyes follow her newly created world, the stick still at her lips. No movement: it could ruin everything. There it goes, higher. Her eyes travel with it. At the far end of the street, someone is walking her way. But the strength of her belief makes him stop. Don’t interfere. Not now. She knows that the slightest doubt could make it collapse. The bubble has already been aloft for seconds. Her left hand holds the canister tighter, tighter: how strongly can you grip the source? Will it help – holding the source tightly – to prevent what it creates from disappearing? For no reason, the transparent world pops. There is no sadness: she is not a child anymore; she’s familiar with things disappearing. She covers the stick in liquid again and seconds later a new, even bigger transparent world is created. I walk up to her, clap my arm around her shoulder and feel her strong body through the soft wool of her sweater. Whatever she has borne has shaped her beautifully. She lets me have one go. “Blow.” And I do. I blow and create a world just by inhaling a little oxygen – a tiny quantity compared with what my lungs can hold – and letting it escape through my mouth. I am making something. “What do you want?” she asks. Her question jolts me. Three transparent worlds’ thinking time, a million pieces of wanting, all projected into the last transparent circle. “What do you really want?” The bubble collapses. The million pieces disappear. The wind has stopped. She was wearing a boat on her head when I met her. It had suddenly started raining. The ink of what had been a newspaper had almost disappeared. I was en route to nothing, she to everything. She was wearing red shoes; a bit quaint like the rest of what she had on, and just perfect. Three seconds – life started to course like a river knowing it is almost at the sea. “What you want is what created silence there.” She puts her finger into the little container, covers it in the liquid and draws a little heart on my forehead. Her fingers are long; short nails, and soft skin. The soapy water doesn’t smell particularly nice. It feels sticky. The spring sun slices through some clouds that are hanging motionless. We cross the street and enter a park. Trees in flower. Blood running everywhere. She has her arm around my shoulder now, and occasionally pinches my arm, as if she wants me to be conscious of her. Kids are playing. Fourteen forever. A ball escapes and heads in our direction. Two kids start running after it, one stopping long before he reaches it. Too afraid to actually run after it. “If what you create always collapses, what is the use of wanting, of creating?” I ask. I stop the ball and kick it to the kid who stopped running. The other kid, the one who kept going and had almost reached the ball, makes me disappear with his eyes. He is close, so I can read it: he really wants me to disappear. And maybe because the kid is too small to fight with me, she suddenly starts to hit me. Playfully, foolishly, but quite hard nevertheless. She laughs. I do not know how to react. It feels like I am losing something. But what? Over what? “Isn’t it amazing?” She stops hitting me. “What?” “This.” No more words follow this ‘this’. She stands there and looks at me with a look that doesn’t want to be described. She lets me gaze at her. I look at the two barely visible lines on her forehead; not signs of age, veins just under her skin. I look at her strong nose, distinct but so tremendously beautiful. I look at her ears – no particular reason except that they show themselves through her thick and naturally coloured hair. I look at her jaw, graphically shaped but not sharp or mean. I look at her eyes – rivers that have already reached the sea. I know she is not a magician. The kid that was supposedly mad with me is frozen in front of an open goal, waiting for the ball that would have arrived a moment later. This is not his lucky day. The ball is hanging in the air. The clouds are still up there too. It is a lazy day. Love stops time; love creates all. Her distinct appearance becomes indistinct – just like everything else. Form loses ground. Light. There is only everything. Form touches ground again; form appears and disappears. I can play with it; I am played by it. The kid is getting the ball and just before he scores, he disappears. It is playing playfully with him. - less tagged:   consciousness   connectedness   light   reality   playing   everything   love   hearth    permalink  read: 5629  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

The eagle and the condor flying together by Andre Platteel , January 23rd

There are four of us, maybe six. It feels completely dark. The only light comes from the sky: thousands of stars and a sliver of moon reaching to the earth. Yet even though the sky above me is clear, the heavens still don’t provide enough light for me to see my immediate surroundings. Although we have walked this path along this amazing coastline at least a dozen times over the last five days, most of us carry flashlights. The near abyss is magnetic. I am having a lazy time in the place that gave birth to the Human Potential Movement, back in the early Sixties. Actually, the Sixties never stopped. There are people gardening naked; the food comes from little gardens within the compound; girls are painting flowers on the walls of buildings; in the evening we gather around a fire outside and those people with guitars play Fleetwood Mac, Crosby, Stills and Nash and Bob Dylan. I went hiking through the wilderness the other day. The sky changed second by second. I walked through rain, in the sun, through storm and even snow, all in no more than half an hour. I felt like Hugh Grant near the end of Notting Hill, with a bit of Indiana Jones thrown in. I tried to find my way through the tall trees and wild bushes. There was no path. Then, the moment the wilderness opened up a bit, my eyes met those of three huge, powerful birds. They stared and shifted their long, thin necks in my direction. They spread their wings – at least six feet wide, I guess – not to take off but to impress on me how big they were. At first, fear stiffened my body. I tried to relax and backed off a bit, still looking into the eyes of these creatures. Condors. I had read in a guide that they used to live here, but had not been seen since the end of the Sixties. Had they been hiding since then, or had they returned? Watching these Condors, I felt a strange otherness I had never encountered before. I felt so alive. Sometimes it takes otherness to remind us what we are made off. + more There are four of us, maybe six. It feels completely dark. The only light comes from the sky: thousands of stars and a sliver of moon reaching to the earth. Yet even though the sky above me is clear, the heavens still don’t provide enough light for me to see my immediate surroundings. Although we have walked this path along this amazing coastline at least a dozen times over the last five days, most of us carry flashlights. The near abyss is magnetic. I am having a lazy time in the place that gave birth to the Human Potential Movement, back in the early Sixties. Actually, the Sixties never stopped. There are people gardening naked; the food comes from little gardens within the compound; girls are painting flowers on the walls of buildings; in the evening we gather around a fire outside and those people with guitars play Fleetwood Mac, Crosby, Stills and Nash and Bob Dylan. I went hiking through the wilderness the other day. The sky changed second by second. I walked through rain, in the sun, through storm and even snow, all in no more than half an hour. I felt like Hugh Grant near the end of Notting Hill, with a bit of Indiana Jones thrown in. I tried to find my way through the tall trees and wild bushes. There was no path. Then, the moment the wilderness opened up a bit, my eyes met those of three huge, powerful birds. They stared and shifted their long, thin necks in my direction. They spread their wings – at least six feet wide, I guess – not to take off but to impress on me how big they were. At first, fear stiffened my body. I tried to relax and backed off a bit, still looking into the eyes of these creatures. Condors. I had read in a guide that they used to live here, but had not been seen since the end of the Sixties. Had they been hiding since then, or had they returned? Watching these Condors, I felt a strange otherness I had never encountered before. I felt so alive. Sometimes it takes otherness to remind us what we are made off. In the darkeness I tell about my encounter with the birds to the four (or is it six) others I’m with. A girl’s voice reacts. I recognize an Esalen-girl I had met earlier and who has lived here all her life. She says that the area is known for eagles and that the condors left decades ago. An Esalen legend tells that when the eagle and condor fly together peace will descend on Earth. Light will defeat darkness. The moment she finishes her story, we all look up into the sky, our attention grabbed by a huge fire high above. Something’s burning. An enormous fire, blazing away, the seconds dragging by. We stop and watch. We don’t speak. It can’t be a plane crash – it’s too high up and too intense. And it’s burning too long. You can see whatever it is trying to reach through the earth’s atmosphere. The fire crackles and bangs. It makes the normally invisible atmosphere visible. Watching the mysterious fire I find myself in the same situation as when I was eye to eye with the condors. Primal fear invades my body. My mind is posing questions that make me feel small: Just how little do we know of the place the fire comes from? How little do we know of the Earth as part of that? How little do I know about myself as part of all this? I feel vulnerable and mortal. Suddenly I feel the fire I see above burning inside me. As if there is no longer any difference between outside and inside. Vulnerability and mortality going up in flames, creating a huge fire. Earth, the Heavens and I are burning, too, but are not destroyed. There is only aliveness. Sometimes it takes fire to show us that what we are is always burning, and always will be. - less tagged:   fire   fear   life   heart   Eagle   Condor   light   darkness   Esalen   sky   understanding   spaciousness   reality    permalink  read: 7383  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

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June, 2010 Dutch Political Leaders Receive book Our World		May, 2010 Resistance Decadence New Book: Our World		April, 2010 Arrogance Naivety Ignorance		June, 2009 Mother of all memories
May, 2009 Come again, and again, and again		April, 2009 The Wolf		March, 2009 The three voices		January, 2009 Born to adore This Dancing with the Beloved
December, 2008 Listen carefully		October, 2008 A fragment of a circle God’s Gods You, me and everything else		September, 2008 Man with powers		August, 2008 The hidden promise Crazy for love
May, 2008 Dr. Feelgood What’s the limit of love		April, 2008 Spring Snow will fall The Cleaner		March, 2008 Motherless Child What I am made of Falling upwards Northern Lights		February, 2008 Glass-made-mind The outer layer of the mind Growing younger On Holy Ground
January, 2008 Watch for the wind to blow How is Diego Maradona doing? What are we guilty off? Everything is what is besides language The eagle and the condor flying together In the heart of Otherness		December, 2007 The man who loved too much The dark brightness The windmills of our mind To make two mountains one, gone Bigger than the stars		November, 2007 Act of passion Making love Life has no meaning Where the heart is Oneness is never the same		October, 2007 Mind blowing Becoming authentic Coloured Mind Hide and Seek Culture of fear The man on the bench The Swordsman
September, 2007 What is thinking? World happening Unity in diversity Smell no evil Going in all directions without beginning or end Alternative routes Superheroes don’t age No place like Utopia? Fog		August, 2007 The Wholeness of being Spirit through matter Looking in the mirror A new heart Is matter what matters? World of opinions. Spaciousness for a flower to grow