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Ignorance by Andre Platteel , April 28th

He had reserved a table at their favourite restaurant, which they would visit after seeing a film at a nearby cinema. In the film, a little boy dies. The whole family is devastated but tries to ignore his death and get on with their lives. Thanks to living in denial, however, death almost completely takes over their lives. She was still sad about the boy during dinner. He couldn’t talk her out of it by saying that it was just a movie and that if she Googled the actor’s name, she would see that he was still alive. She answered that these things happen in real life, too: people die and the sadness it causes can be so big that the people left behind die a great deal as well. Whatever he was trying to say to cheer her up, he was actually making her sadder, even more upset. The restaurant had an outstanding name, but her meat was too red. And her beans looked frail. She hardly ate anything. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, she said she wasn’t sure if she loved him – that she felt it was possible that her love for him could disappear. How can love be true if there is a chance that it could pass? He felt her distancing herself from him. Tears welled up in his eyes, although he knew she wasn’t talking about their love. She went to the bathroom and returned pale and sweaty. He said 'sweetie'. She eventually filled the silence that followed by saying that she also doubted life, because life is not eternal, and how can you trust something that ends? He ordered some coffee and + more He had reserved a table at their favourite restaurant, which they would visit after seeing a film at a nearby cinema. In the film, a little boy dies. The whole family is devastated but tries to ignore his death and get on with their lives. Thanks to living in denial, however, death almost completely takes over their lives. She was still sad about the boy during dinner. He couldn’t talk her out of it by saying that it was just a movie and that if she Googled the actor’s name, she would see that he was still alive. She answered that these things happen in real life, too: people die and the sadness it causes can be so big that the people left behind die a great deal as well. Whatever he was trying to say to cheer her up, he was actually making her sadder, even more upset. The restaurant had an outstanding name, but her meat was too red. And her beans looked frail. She hardly ate anything. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, she said she wasn’t sure if she loved him – that she felt it was possible that her love for him could disappear. How can love be true if there is a chance that it could pass? He felt her distancing herself from him. Tears welled up in his eyes, although he knew she wasn’t talking about their love. She went to the bathroom and returned pale and sweaty. He said 'sweetie'. She eventually filled the silence that followed by saying that she also doubted life, because life is not eternal, and how can you trust something that ends? He ordered some coffee and chocolates and told her that they had come to this beautiful restaurant to celebrate love and life. Seeing these words fail, he tried another tack: ‘You know, when something passes and seemingly ends it comes from something eternal.’ ‘But when one of us dies,’ she asked sweetly, ‘we are separated. You can’t deny that, can you?’ The waiter came back with a cup filled with chocolates and raspberries. He tried again, with different words. But these didn’t convince either. He couldn’t reach her or himself. Their minds were filled with voices that had created a conspiracy against everything they believed in and knew was true. - less tagged:   ignorance   mind   life   love   fear    permalink  read: 2274  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

Come again, and again, and again by Andre Platteel , May 13th

He felt strange the moment he walked into the shop, but not because there was something weird about it. It was more the strange feeling you get when you walk into your new house, eyes roving the walls, the corners, the way the light breaks through the window, maybe following the contours of the few pieces of furniture that have been already moved in. Everything not quite familiar, the connections not quite there yet soon to become home. Bookshops were like homes to him. Books were like furniture for his mind, longing to find just the right chair to relax in. The owner of the second-hand book shop would later tell others about this customer. How he would spend hours and hours in his shop. How he treated each book, first touching the cover, moving his fingers slowly, like a blind man reading. How he would read the first five or so pages, his eyes never blinking. How he sometimes held a book just an inch from his nose and sniffed, trying to understand it by its smell. How the man, after great deliberation, would finally select a book. The bookseller, his tone very serious, would then tell his friends how he was misled by his client’s behaviour. Although the man bought a masterpiece every time he visited, creating the aura of a connoisseur, he didn’t seem to know anything about literature. Despite the bookseller’s efforts to make conversation, the man had not the slightest idea about the book he had bought, about the author, or about the importance of the book for modern literature. And when his friends grew tired of hearing him talk about his client, the bookseller would protest, “But this has happened, this is true”, as if afraid his friends had lost interest in reality. As if the stories in the real world were somehow different to those in a novel. More urgent. When his friends’ interest in listening returned, the bookseller would describe every detail of his client: his appearance (large, like a giant), how he smelled (like something that absorbs everything, the musty, dusty smell of second-hand books departing with him), what he wore (a heavy leather jacket, even in the summer, that was too short for his arms), his habits (liquorish in his left pocket, of which he ate four or five pieces per visit, noiselessly). Yes, the bookseller missed nothing in describing the man’s habits; he knew that a good writer would lavish attention on the behaviour of the characters in his novel. Attention, that is what a good writer can give his readers. + more He felt strange the moment he walked into the shop, but not because there was something weird about it. It was more the strange feeling you get when you walk into your new house, eyes roving the walls, the corners, the way the light breaks through the window, maybe following the contours of the few pieces of furniture that have been already moved in. Everything not quite familiar, the connections not quite there yet soon to become home. Bookshops were like homes to him. Books were like furniture for his mind, longing to find just the right chair to relax in. The owner of the second-hand book shop would later tell others about this customer. How he would spend hours and hours in his shop. How he treated each book, first touching the cover, moving his fingers slowly, like a blind man reading. How he would read the first five or so pages, his eyes never blinking. How he sometimes held a book just an inch from his nose and sniffed, trying to understand it by its smell. How the man, after great deliberation, would finally select a book. The bookseller, his tone very serious, would then tell his friends how he was misled by his client’s behaviour. Although the man bought a masterpiece every time he visited, creating the aura of a connoisseur, he didn’t seem to know anything about literature. Despite the bookseller’s efforts to make conversation, the man had not the slightest idea about the book he had bought, about the author, or about the importance of the book for modern literature. And when his friends grew tired of hearing him talk about his client, the bookseller would protest, “But this has happened, this is true”, as if afraid his friends had lost interest in reality. As if the stories in the real world were somehow different to those in a novel. More urgent. When his friends’ interest in listening returned, the bookseller would describe every detail of his client: his appearance (large, like a giant), how he smelled (like something that absorbs everything, the musty, dusty smell of second-hand books departing with him), what he wore (a heavy leather jacket, even in the summer, that was too short for his arms), his habits (liquorish in his left pocket, of which he ate four or five pieces per visit, noiselessly). Yes, the bookseller missed nothing in describing the man’s habits; he knew that a good writer would lavish attention on the behaviour of the characters in his novel. Attention, that is what a good writer can give his readers. “I would love to return this book.” A few weeks had gone by and the client wanted to give back the book he had bought. Not that he wanted his money back: “It just did not interest me and I don’t want to own something that does not interest me completely”, he had explained. This buying and returning became a pattern. For years, every book he bought, he returned, the interval between sale and return growing shorter and shorter. And long after the bookseller had stopped talking about his client (he understood that a recurring pattern with no new developments is no basis for a good tale), the man had still not found a ‘suitable’ book. And while other booksellers would have discussed this with the client, or maybe stopped selling him books altogether, or just gone mad, this bookseller didn’t ask anything. He waited, thrilled, for his client to return, one of the few people who still visited his shop, too few to run a business. The white, hand-painted announcement that appeared on the shop window didn’t deter the client from visiting. ‘Final discounts.’ Nor did the client ask the bookseller why he was still in business months after the words had changed to ‘last few days’. Some people thought the client would have stopped coming if he had known that the bookseller had stayed in business just for him, and that it would have saved the bookseller. “Why are you so obsessed with this client,” a friend who had become a stranger following the visits of the man, once asked. The bookseller’s answer tumbled forth, strange: “This client is not a man but a lover ... After a while I suddenly understood that his love was not of the stories ... the most beautiful stories ever written could not capture his entire interest ... he liked reading, but he was searching for something that could not be read ... he was trying to find an entrance to the Beloved by reading all that was ever written ... you know the Beloved (his friend had not answered)? At a certain point I stopped asking him questions, stopped trying to make conversation about books and writers. I just watched him moving, feeling, smelling, reading, selecting and returning. And with every book he returned I knew he would come closer with every subsequent one he bought. The time would come when he would meet the Beloved. And I felt privileged to watch this happening. In silence. And I felt happy to invite this client again and again, just being there for him. And by not closing my shop. Somewhere in my head I heard a voice saying: come again, and again, and again. And these words were the most beautiful ones I had ever heard. They were so inviting, not only for my client, but for me as well, inviting to meet the Beloved, knowing that every story can come home into It. Even the stories you are ashamed of reading.” The friend who had become a stranger told people that as the bookseller spoke it was as if he had become half a man, that he had almost dissolved while speaking, his head covered with white paint too, as if he also entered his ‘last few days’. And when the bookseller really disappeared, the discussion started. Some people said that the bookseller had gone mad and killed himself. Others were convinced that the client had finally found the book he could rest in, and that they had left together. Some would add that they had become lovers. All stories, all of them come home. - less tagged:   Beloved   love   books   inviting   reality   stories    permalink  read: 6403  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

Dancing with the Beloved by Andre Platteel , January 26th

I had no idea that you could walk to the end of the world. Finally, after hours and hours of walking, Goodness came to me unreservedly. The ground had turned soft and sandy. I felt how the earth was sinking into me. My eyes had had time to adjust to the brightness of her beauty. Now that I was in front of her, I realized that she had been visible throughout my journey. Too close to see at first. The more I walked the brighter and more visible she became. She looks amazing, dressed stylishly in black, not a colour I had expected. A furrowed face reveals infinite layers of life that you can see in a single moment. “Welcome home; the place you have never left.” Her voice is tender. Every word placed carefully into silence. “You are so alive.” I didn’t mean to speak, but it’s what happens. “Life’s aliveness shines through us vividly when we remain alive and die in the same moment.” Her feet start moving. Just a little. The rest of her doesn’t move at all. A beautiful maroon flower in her hair. Two feathers. Somewhere. “Don’t you miss the other world?” Her brightness catches fire deep inside me. I know there is no way back. It’s nostalgia speaking: I fear losing what I thought I had. “From this perspective there is no other world. All worlds are included. And yet this place is beyond every world. Your question comes from memory. You are now no longer bound by memory. But you may use your memory freely.” She pulls a torch from her pocket, creates a circle of light around her and starts dancing. Funny faces. Funny movements. “Join me.” We dance. “From now on you are no longer in experiences; you are in relationship.” This woman could be my grandmother. She could be my daughter. She could be my sister. Or brother. It starts heating up. She becomes my lover. I cannot help saying it: “I think I’m beginning to love you.” “I know,” she says. “When you become intimate with what is, Love’s face appears naturally. Irresistibly. From now on, everything with which you are in a relationship will be recognized as love.” + more I had no idea that you could walk to the end of the world. Finally, after hours and hours of walking, Goodness came to me unreservedly. The ground had turned soft and sandy. I felt how the earth was sinking into me. My eyes had had time to adjust to the brightness of her beauty. Now that I was in front of her, I realized that she had been visible throughout my journey. Too close to see at first. The more I walked the brighter and more visible she became. She looks amazing, dressed stylishly in black, not a colour I had expected. A furrowed face reveals infinite layers of life that you can see in a single moment. “Welcome home; the place you have never left.” Her voice is tender. Every word placed carefully into silence. “You are so alive.” I didn’t mean to speak, but it’s what happens. “Life’s aliveness shines through us vividly when we remain alive and die in the same moment.” Her feet start moving. Just a little. The rest of her doesn’t move at all. A beautiful maroon flower in her hair. Two feathers. Somewhere. “Don’t you miss the other world?” Her brightness catches fire deep inside me. I know there is no way back. It’s nostalgia speaking: I fear losing what I thought I had. “From this perspective there is no other world. All worlds are included. And yet this place is beyond every world. Your question comes from memory. You are now no longer bound by memory. But you may use your memory freely.” She pulls a torch from her pocket, creates a circle of light around her and starts dancing. Funny faces. Funny movements. “Join me.” We dance. “From now on you are no longer in experiences; you are in relationship.” This woman could be my grandmother. She could be my daughter. She could be my sister. Or brother. It starts heating up. She becomes my lover. I cannot help saying it: “I think I’m beginning to love you.” “I know,” she says. “When you become intimate with what is, Love’s face appears naturally. Irresistibly. From now on, everything with which you are in a relationship will be recognized as love.” She takes my hands. She makes dynamic movements with me. I feel a bit silly. For a moment, I want to turn back, back to where I came from, taking the darkness I had crossed for granted. But, blinded by her brightness as I am, there is no chance my eyes will lead me back to where I came from. The area lit by her torch starts to grow bigger and bigger. And it happens by itself. She is not doing anything, just holding the torch. Effortlessly. More and more of our surroundings are enveloped. It starts snowing. A condor. Creatures howling with fear. The sun and the moon too. My bloodline. All those who were before us. Even the now is lit up. Everything becomes visible, including all the opposite sides of everything. All allow themselves to exist fully, to shine brightly and vividly, holding hands with what makes them Whole, without losing their character. The playground we dance in has become infinite, immediate, and brilliant. Although I feel a bit ashamed to ask, because it seems questions should not be voiced here, I still do so: “Is this the end?” A question deposited by fear, my curiosity kicking in. “No, silly. There is no end. Allow the end to be part of what is beyond ‘the end’. Her feet stop for a moment. She grabs my body firmly and looks into my eyes seriously. “Your Love is safe with me. For always.” And before I know it we are dancing again, and I begin to embrace the movements. - less tagged:   love   connectedness   movement   dancing   sun   connectedness   life   beyond   opposites    permalink  read: 9341  print  forward  comments: 4  add comment      name:  Herman Ouwersloot, February 10th • Heart warming words. In my experience a genuine and realistic story of a dear person Letty, February 4th • Wow... beeldschoon, onwerkelijk, surrealistisch en toch vertrouwd. Alsof je me een vergeten herinnering hebt teruggegeven. jerome, January 28th • erg mooi stuk. more comments    Diana Schadek, January 27th • beautiful thank you very much for this wonderful moment

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: 7315  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: André Platteel

You, me and everything else by Andre Platteel , October 30th

The window needed shutting: the rain was getting in. Autumn wetness drumming on the windows, drowning out the sound of Keith Jarrett breathing loudly as he played his black, polished Bechstein. The speakers whispered: “The rain, the rain, we will defeat it.” But they couldn’t. You were lying on the velvet green couch, meeting it with your simple silk ochre dress. More albums on the ground. Van Morrison, Bartok, Sigur Ros and some that were unfamiliar to me. You were ignoring them, just like you were ignoring the music and the rain; your eyes were on me. An unknown scent of aliveness came at me from all sides; from the books, from the glass chandelier, from the flowers on the table and from the windows the rain was trickling through. Your legs were at an angle, trying but failing to reach the wooden floor. An inch separating your right foot and the ground. Your left further away. Your left hand on your belly, your right hand next to your body. Lean hands; small wrists; long fingers. Your shoulders rested against a cushion, your head was tilted back. Your golden hair was like a monotone rainbow. The whole of you seemed to melt into the air around us. It felt to me like perfect balance: the rattling rain, Jarrett’s playing, the shape of your body on the couch, the colours of your dress, the faded green velvet, the scent of aliveness. The velvety structure of your eyes made me go deeper inside myself. There was no way I could reach out to that look. I had to meet it somewhere deeper. What does something that is being reborn every moment feel like? I felt how everything that seems to be unique is connected to all other things as well. A code? It was more than a mathematical formula in which different letters suddenly form logic; there were holes in the formula, opening up to as yet unborn worlds about to unfold. Never-ending spring. Blossoming. I felt dazzled: too many shadows became forms, too many forms disappeared into the holes. I felt happy. I could have laughed hysterically. My soul appeared to have holes too: every single sound, every single colour, every single touch and every single taste was absorbed. I lived in everything, and everything lived in me. + more The window needed shutting: the rain was getting in. Autumn wetness drumming on the windows, drowning out the sound of Keith Jarrett breathing loudly as he played his black, polished Bechstein. The speakers whispered: “The rain, the rain, we will defeat it.” But they couldn’t. You were lying on the velvet green couch, meeting it with your simple silk ochre dress. More albums on the ground. Van Morrison, Bartok, Sigur Ros and some that were unfamiliar to me. You were ignoring them, just like you were ignoring the music and the rain; your eyes were on me. An unknown scent of aliveness came at me from all sides; from the books, from the glass chandelier, from the flowers on the table and from the windows the rain was trickling through. Your legs were at an angle, trying but failing to reach the wooden floor. An inch separating your right foot and the ground. Your left further away. Your left hand on your belly, your right hand next to your body. Lean hands; small wrists; long fingers. Your shoulders rested against a cushion, your head was tilted back. Your golden hair was like a monotone rainbow. The whole of you seemed to melt into the air around us. It felt to me like perfect balance: the rattling rain, Jarrett’s playing, the shape of your body on the couch, the colours of your dress, the faded green velvet, the scent of aliveness. The velvety structure of your eyes made me go deeper inside myself. There was no way I could reach out to that look. I had to meet it somewhere deeper. What does something that is being reborn every moment feel like? I felt how everything that seems to be unique is connected to all other things as well. A code? It was more than a mathematical formula in which different letters suddenly form logic; there were holes in the formula, opening up to as yet unborn worlds about to unfold. Never-ending spring. Blossoming. I felt dazzled: too many shadows became forms, too many forms disappeared into the holes. I felt happy. I could have laughed hysterically. My soul appeared to have holes too: every single sound, every single colour, every single touch and every single taste was absorbed. I lived in everything, and everything lived in me. You stood up. You walked towards me. A fugue. Mathematics reformulated with every movement: new holes appearing. Other possibilities with every breath. You passed me. You disappeared. I could smell your scent. You were still there. I loved to lose you, knowing you can never leave. The rain was still failing to defy gravity. How does an ever-falling leaf smell? You came back with nothing but yourself. You were silent. You were a woman who does not need to speak to meet. I could have told you stories; I could have sang; I could have made you laugh. But all these things were just too much for what already was. I wanted to become one with you and all other things. But the wanting wasn’t needed. I realised that everything in the world exists out of identical particles. You, me and the fresh flowers, just plucked from a nearby garden, now standing in a vase on the table – they are just different forms of the same, creating different harmonies. All one, all God-like, and all equal while different. You stopped in front of me and granted me a look at all you were. Insolent. I looked shamelessly. In a soundless movement you bent your knees and embraced me. You wanted to overcome the illusion of distance. You wanted to break with the idea that something can be ‘too much.’ I felt silk, skin. Warmth. I felt grateful. - less tagged:   consciousness   God   understanding   love   connectedness   flower   silk   Jarrett   Bechstein    permalink  read: 8184  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

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

Crazy for love by Andre Platteel , August 10th

He says he has conquered thirteen thousand feathered animals. His words are like birds. I cannot really catch them. “She is falling. Softly. She loves me. But something says she does not.” I believe him; I believe that he has fought thirteen thousand feathered animals. He’s not wearing any shoes. His big toe is thick and blue, as is his ankle. Little scratches here and there. His sweater and trousers are dirty. His face decorated with small scars, from fighting. And feathers in his hair. I envision thirteen thousand feathered animals in a battle with this bare-footed man. “I had to escape you know; they were after me.” He sees my questions building, but pretends not to. Salty air hangs in the street. “If she really asks me to go, I will leave. And I will never come back begging for her love. But she does not tell me to leave. Instead she sends me fighting feathered animals. Look.” His blond hair is reaching out to the sky. He conjures without hands; a high black hat is lifted from his head, a hat that was not there a second ago; a bird escapes. Not the white pigeon one would expect - just a bird; grey, small and with a funny beak. Not long ago I had dinner with this man. I know him for quite a while. This man is a professional in his discipline, and well respected too. “When you don’t wear shoes everybody thinks you’re a homeless person. One guy gave me some money, but I have enough of that. I want nothing but her love. For the first time I feel ground.” He stamps his foot. “Now I understand why God asked Moses to take off his shoes, since he was on Holy Ground. This is Holy Ground.” He stamps again. “And it has never been different.” His voice becomes stronger. People walking past are staring at us. Among them are people that I recognise and who I am sure also recognise him. I see them thinking: Has this man gone crazy? “How many times have I been killed the last seventy-two hours in the chambers of love’s desire? How many times?” He raises his hands heroically. Every second I expect the scenery to collapse. And for the audience to applaud. But he’s not playing a role; I have never seen his eyes so deep and bright. “I am not a crazy man.” He is clear, he reads minds. “I am hyper. Yes. So, I might look like a crazy man. But that is because all the craziness of the past decades has hit the surface of my system. What have I been doing? First working my butt off to gain more knowledge. But what have I learned? And what has work done for me but enable me to buy something I thought I needed. There was no time for love. There was time for girlfriends, and all that stuff - but no time for love.” + more He says he has conquered thirteen thousand feathered animals. His words are like birds. I cannot really catch them. “She is falling. Softly. She loves me. But something says she does not.” I believe him; I believe that he has fought thirteen thousand feathered animals. He’s not wearing any shoes. His big toe is thick and blue, as is his ankle. Little scratches here and there. His sweater and trousers are dirty. His face decorated with small scars, from fighting. And feathers in his hair. I envision thirteen thousand feathered animals in a battle with this bare-footed man. “I had to escape you know; they were after me.” He sees my questions building, but pretends not to. Salty air hangs in the street. “If she really asks me to go, I will leave. And I will never come back begging for her love. But she does not tell me to leave. Instead she sends me fighting feathered animals. Look.” His blond hair is reaching out to the sky. He conjures without hands; a high black hat is lifted from his head, a hat that was not there a second ago; a bird escapes. Not the white pigeon one would expect - just a bird; grey, small and with a funny beak. Not long ago I had dinner with this man. I know him for quite a while. This man is a professional in his discipline, and well respected too. “When you don’t wear shoes everybody thinks you’re a homeless person. One guy gave me some money, but I have enough of that. I want nothing but her love. For the first time I feel ground.” He stamps his foot. “Now I understand why God asked Moses to take off his shoes, since he was on Holy Ground. This is Holy Ground.” He stamps again. “And it has never been different.” His voice becomes stronger. People walking past are staring at us. Among them are people that I recognise and who I am sure also recognise him. I see them thinking: Has this man gone crazy? “How many times have I been killed the last seventy-two hours in the chambers of love’s desire? How many times?” He raises his hands heroically. Every second I expect the scenery to collapse. And for the audience to applaud. But he’s not playing a role; I have never seen his eyes so deep and bright. “I am not a crazy man.” He is clear, he reads minds. “I am hyper. Yes. So, I might look like a crazy man. But that is because all the craziness of the past decades has hit the surface of my system. What have I been doing? First working my butt off to gain more knowledge. But what have I learned? And what has work done for me but enable me to buy something I thought I needed. There was no time for love. There was time for girlfriends, and all that stuff - but no time for love.” A man has stopped quite close to us, listening. He’s behaving casually in the hope we won’t notice him: he’s picking his nose. And actually, what he is doing isn’t entirely fake. “I have had my doubts the last few days. Can I allow love to tear me apart? But then I thought: how can I believe my own doubt? And what is it that is actually doubting? It’s that which thinks that is in control that is doubting. But are we ever in control? Isn’t that the main cause of confusion? That we think that we are someone who can be in control of something? Isn’t that what is causing pain? Look.” He rolls up a sleeve of his light blue shirt to reveal his right arm. His veins are visible, as if they are on the surface of his skin. “Look carefully.” I can see his blood streaming. It is streaming with joy. “Have I anything to say about this blood streaming through my body? All I can do is to make myself available for life to run through me.” A short silence descends while we stare at life streaming. I wonder whether I should say or ask something, or just celebrate this rare moment of peace. He breaks the silence and bends. “Watch out.” I copy his movement instantly. Thousands of feathered animals are filling the streets. The salty air becomes stronger. Then he suddenly rises, spreads his arms and begins to speak: “I open my terrors to you. Let the mountains rejoice, my love. I have come deep into your arms. I have become endlessness in those arms. Let the wings of these animals destroy every corner of me. Let me fall softly, deeper into you, becoming you. Let my image die into you.” He speaks beautifully, like an actor in a Shakespeare play. The animals disappear. The audience applauds. I see a man no more, but love. - less tagged:   animals   love   consciousness   movement   blood   doubt   Shakespeare   mountains    permalink  read: 7602  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

Dr. Feelgood by Andre Platteel , May 13th

“No, that’s nothing; no need to worry about that.” Five seconds and a fear that had stayed with me for years, vanishes. Just like that. I am already lifting myself out of the chair when he says: “You are trying to love this, aren’t you.” On ‘this’ he spreads his arms, and I think I see a twinkle in his eyes. Now fear has left me, my system is more open to really looking at this doctor, this doctor with the practice deep in the woods. And he looks funny. Early fifties, grey hair, glasses, white coat, of course, jeans, sneakers – also white, with three white stripes, barely noticeable. Actually, he looks a bit like Dustin Hoffman. “So, what I notice is that there is a certain resistance in your system, making it hard for you to be fully open to this moment. Is that right?” He is leaning backwards. He is enjoying this more than the investigation of some small bumbs on my head, a few seconds ago. “Listen.” Bird sounds. “Feel,” he says, striking his cheek and pointing his head in my direction, encouraging me to do the same. I feel a bit embarrassed. “What is it that prevents you from being fully open to this moment? This is all we have. Now – this moment – isn’t it?” Without waiting for me to answer he grabs a paper and a pen and gives them to me. “I will ask ‘it’, and also for you to come up with something that will support you in becoming fully available.” He puts his hands behind his head, letting it rest in them. “Please write down...” His breathing becomes louder. He closes his eyes, opens his mouth, but nothing comes, not yet. A few seconds later: “Love and happiness are what the world will give to me...” He is breathing loudly through his nose and takes a little pause, “…I am part of all that is happening, every moment. What could please me more than to receive love in the deepest of my being. Everything is so easy, and the reason why is not important.” He stops. Opens his eyes and meets mine. I put down my pen. Unexpectedly, his mouth issues more words. “What a pleasure it will be to allow love to ground me, to form the basis of my being.” He asks me to repeat what he has just said. I do. Quite fast, feeling a bit strange. “Again please.” I do. Then: “Could you do it one more time, but take your time for the words to blossom in you.” In the slowness of repeating I feel the words finding their way into my body. “I know this is quite unusual. You go to a doctor, and well...” He lifts his arms and opens his hands. “For thirty years I have been a doctor: what most doctors do does not help one bit to make you become more fully alive.” He gets out of his chair and walks a bit. His office is quite big. “Are you okay with this?” I am. + more “No, that’s nothing; no need to worry about that.” Five seconds and a fear that had stayed with me for years, vanishes. Just like that. I am already lifting myself out of the chair when he says: “You are trying to love this, aren’t you.” On ‘this’ he spreads his arms, and I think I see a twinkle in his eyes. Now fear has left me, my system is more open to really looking at this doctor, this doctor with the practice deep in the woods. And he looks funny. Early fifties, grey hair, glasses, white coat, of course, jeans, sneakers – also white, with three white stripes, barely noticeable. Actually, he looks a bit like Dustin Hoffman. “So, what I notice is that there is a certain resistance in your system, making it hard for you to be fully open to this moment. Is that right?” He is leaning backwards. He is enjoying this more than the investigation of some small bumbs on my head, a few seconds ago. “Listen.” Bird sounds. “Feel,” he says, striking his cheek and pointing his head in my direction, encouraging me to do the same. I feel a bit embarrassed. “What is it that prevents you from being fully open to this moment? This is all we have. Now – this moment – isn’t it?” Without waiting for me to answer he grabs a paper and a pen and gives them to me. “I will ask ‘it’, and also for you to come up with something that will support you in becoming fully available.” He puts his hands behind his head, letting it rest in them. “Please write down...” His breathing becomes louder. He closes his eyes, opens his mouth, but nothing comes, not yet. A few seconds later: “Love and happiness are what the world will give to me...” He is breathing loudly through his nose and takes a little pause, “…I am part of all that is happening, every moment. What could please me more than to receive love in the deepest of my being. Everything is so easy, and the reason why is not important.” He stops. Opens his eyes and meets mine. I put down my pen. Unexpectedly, his mouth issues more words. “What a pleasure it will be to allow love to ground me, to form the basis of my being.” He asks me to repeat what he has just said. I do. Quite fast, feeling a bit strange. “Again please.” I do. Then: “Could you do it one more time, but take your time for the words to blossom in you.” In the slowness of repeating I feel the words finding their way into my body. “I know this is quite unusual. You go to a doctor, and well...” He lifts his arms and opens his hands. “For thirty years I have been a doctor: what most doctors do does not help one bit to make you become more fully alive.” He gets out of his chair and walks a bit. His office is quite big. “Are you okay with this?” I am. “Look, we can investigate what it is that is bugging you. We can also ask this great intelligence (lifting his arms again, opening them to receive) to show it to us.” He closes the office curtains. Some workers have arrived to fix something and can see in. “I don’t like people watching me when I’m doing this,” he says, moving to the middle of the room. “I will ask this intelligence, or love, or consciousness, or whatever we want to call it, to show, through me, who you think you are at this moment. After that I can ask it to show, through me, who you really are. Let’s see if there is a difference.” He takes off his white coat, revealing a blue polo shirt. A man on a horse. He concentrates. His body begins to change. He starts walking with his chin slightly tilted, chest pushed out. All in slow motion. He raises his arms and puts them in front of his chest, his hands becoming claws. His feet move heavily, stickily. He walks for two, maybe three minutes, doing circles in his office. Changes in his posture, but not significantly different. I am watching myself in a mirror. He breaths out, heavenly, and lets me out of him. “Okay.” One word to close session one. He walks to the centre of his office and closes his eyes. He makes contact again. For a few seconds, nothing. Then, he bursts out in a laugh. “This is funny, this is so funny. Look.” He begins to pace again. He touches his heart with his right hand and then makes a movement with it as if sowing seed. He doesn’t stop giggling. His acting out of ‘me’ goes on for minutes, encompassing different movements and poses. I cannot help but burst into laughter too. It doesn’t disturb him. He keeps on acting me, and my systems recognize what it is that wants to show itself. A few minutes later I am standing at the door. We shake hands. They feel good: his and mine, both hands. - less tagged:   body   spaciousness   consciousness   knowing   spirituality   love    permalink  read: 5756  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: André Platteel

Northern Lights by Andre Platteel , March 28th

Today, I am quite immortal. I open my eyes and see a sky full of stars; a landscape that’s totally silent. Wide open. Dark background deepened through the ages. No time. There is no time that can make darkness as deep as this. A thought escapes: this does not exist. It does. Even if I was nothing more than air. I make a meaningless sound. Wait. Make another sound. Not loud, just for myself. I am trying to follow the rhythm of light and dark above me. And wondering: Is the darkness the silence between words or is it the light that represents silence? It makes a completely different rhyme. There is no distance between my eyes and the stars; their light burns my retina. My eyes fly. Anything further than ‘none’ falls off the edge of my vision. The Northern Lights are radiant tonight. It’s as if they are leading the other stars in a flight so fast that movement becomes invisible. How can lack of movement be so moving? I go into the living room. A big space. I see wood that makes a table. The table makes the living room. The living room makes the house. The house makes the street. What if this house decides to move somewhere else? The light outside has decided to shine on some garbage that’s acting silently, hoping to be left alone. I clean, light some candles and think of her and of the last time I saw her. There is a hole in my thinking. A sound. And with it returns the memory I failed to retrieve a second ago. I push a button. A short distance away a door is opening downstairs. A few seconds later she knocks and opens the door of the room, leaving me no time to answer. Long hair; a waterfall of gold. There is a dark blue fly on the table, and the moment she enters the room it takes off, flying like a lost child. She passes me, speaking with her eyes. My legs are burning. She walks to another part of the room. I had no time to see how she is dressed. There is a wall between my eyes and her. Thin. I could blow it away with my mind. She walks back, heading my direction. Stops half way. Undressed. She stands near a cupboard, a few metres from me. She impresses me. Outside, the future is humiliated. She curves her body, her arm resting on the top of the cupboard, her legs crossed, one of her heels curved upwards. She knows her classics. I could liberate her from her pose. Paradise is just a few steps away. To stand here, watching her, seeing her breathe and shape her body, makes me want to be air. “I can never love you,” she says. “I could never hurt you.” She sounds sure but feels unclear. There are shadows between the words, shadows that behave like time stretching endlessly. Words can create such a feeling of powerless. Still, I feel more than I can see or hear. + more Today, I am quite immortal. I open my eyes and see a sky full of stars; a landscape that’s totally silent. Wide open. Dark background deepened through the ages. No time. There is no time that can make darkness as deep as this. A thought escapes: this does not exist. It does. Even if I was nothing more than air. I make a meaningless sound. Wait. Make another sound. Not loud, just for myself. I am trying to follow the rhythm of light and dark above me. And wondering: Is the darkness the silence between words or is it the light that represents silence? It makes a completely different rhyme. There is no distance between my eyes and the stars; their light burns my retina. My eyes fly. Anything further than ‘none’ falls off the edge of my vision. The Northern Lights are radiant tonight. It’s as if they are leading the other stars in a flight so fast that movement becomes invisible. How can lack of movement be so moving? I go into the living room. A big space. I see wood that makes a table. The table makes the living room. The living room makes the house. The house makes the street. What if this house decides to move somewhere else? The light outside has decided to shine on some garbage that’s acting silently, hoping to be left alone. I clean, light some candles and think of her and of the last time I saw her. There is a hole in my thinking. A sound. And with it returns the memory I failed to retrieve a second ago. I push a button. A short distance away a door is opening downstairs. A few seconds later she knocks and opens the door of the room, leaving me no time to answer. Long hair; a waterfall of gold. There is a dark blue fly on the table, and the moment she enters the room it takes off, flying like a lost child. She passes me, speaking with her eyes. My legs are burning. She walks to another part of the room. I had no time to see how she is dressed. There is a wall between my eyes and her. Thin. I could blow it away with my mind. She walks back, heading my direction. Stops half way. Undressed. She stands near a cupboard, a few metres from me. She impresses me. Outside, the future is humiliated. She curves her body, her arm resting on the top of the cupboard, her legs crossed, one of her heels curved upwards. She knows her classics. I could liberate her from her pose. Paradise is just a few steps away. To stand here, watching her, seeing her breathe and shape her body, makes me want to be air. “I can never love you,” she says. “I could never hurt you.” She sounds sure but feels unclear. There are shadows between the words, shadows that behave like time stretching endlessly. Words can create such a feeling of powerless. Still, I feel more than I can see or hear. The fly is back on the table; it knows it belongs there, for now. With those few words she has erected a whole world between us. I wait: which of us will give the word ‘distance’ another meaning. Two steps, three, and a small one. Behind her back it’s the wood that disappears first, followed by the table, the room, the house and finally the street. It is snowing in summer. I feel I am not nothing, not anything, but that I am alive. I once bought a little box in a Chinese shop near my house. It was the size of a small button. When I opened it, stars appeared. I took them out, one by one, right hand placing them in the palm of my left. As I did so I was thinking what to do with them. After some time I still had no clue. I decided to put them back. The man who sold me the box, a tall dark guy, certainly not Chinese, said that the box held a secret. The box weighed next to nothing. I look at her: I can see that darkness and light are both silence and sound simultaneously. Her hands are tight to the sky. “What are you afraid of?” She becomes transparent. She falls off the edge of my vision but I know she is still there. “Can love cause pain?” she says without asking. “Are you in pain?” I ask. She giggles and I read: Not after the moments just gone. “Are you sure you are not in pain?” I ask. She stops giggling and moves her head in confirmation. Serious now, as serious as a little child. I call for the sky and the stars to be my judge – the Northern Lights are beside me, already here. - less tagged:   body   stars   mind   life   darkness   love   fear    permalink  read: 5749  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

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: 5630  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen

Bigger than the stars by Andre Platteel , December 28th

I have to change planes in Budapest, Hungary. I have a cup of coffee in the only bar outside passport control. It is busy and almost everyone is smoking. I join some people sitting at a table not too far from the entrance; my idea is to try to breathe some clean air. The man next to me is wearing a beautiful, dark blue woollen suit with grey stripes, a hat and dark, shiny leather shoes. He is not old – my age – though he reminds me of my grandfather. He too always dressed up and polished his shoes almost every day. And he wore amazing hats. You had to look carefully to see the differences between the hats he wore; they were all the same colour and shape. They were different, though, I could see. As a kid I loved putting them on and trying to be my grandfather, sitting in a chair pretending I was drinking gin, like he did. The man starts to talk to me. I tell him I don’t speak Hungarian. He switches to English and tells me that he too is not from Hungary; he tells me that every time he came to this country he got such a warm welcome that he started to learn the language: “To understand their loveliness to me.” Somehow I have always felt attracted to the central and south-eastern European states. Although my father knows little about his family, leaving me with blanks about my roots, he does think his grandpa and ancestors were Gypsies. His father told him stories about travelling uncles and brothers selling stuff out of their cars in Romania and Hungary. I could be the son of Gypsies. My father’s skin is Gypsy-coloured, neither white nor black but somewhere in between. And my father too was a travelling salesman. Actually, I doubt I have Gypsy roots. My father hates music and he hates dancing. And I always felt an affinity for black people. Just recently, someone told me he had met a Nigerian man with the same last name I have. The man told him that it was quite common in Nigeria. As a child I was always amazed by the stuff my father was about to sell. Nearly every week our house morphed into a kind of wholesale market, full of stuff my father had bought from people who had gone out of business. One week my father bought and had to sell thousands of sausages; another week he bought and had to sell jeans that were decades out of style. But somehow he always succeeded. And on the rare occasion that he didn’t, he went to a bar where other salesman gathered, playing cards and betting their unsold goods in the hope of losing them and winning something more valuable instead. + more I have to change planes in Budapest, Hungary. I have a cup of coffee in the only bar outside passport control. It is busy and almost everyone is smoking. I join some people sitting at a table not too far from the entrance; my idea is to try to breathe some clean air. The man next to me is wearing a beautiful, dark blue woollen suit with grey stripes, a hat and dark, shiny leather shoes. He is not old – my age – though he reminds me of my grandfather. He too always dressed up and polished his shoes almost every day. And he wore amazing hats. You had to look carefully to see the differences between the hats he wore; they were all the same colour and shape. They were different, though, I could see. As a kid I loved putting them on and trying to be my grandfather, sitting in a chair pretending I was drinking gin, like he did. The man starts to talk to me. I tell him I don’t speak Hungarian. He switches to English and tells me that he too is not from Hungary; he tells me that every time he came to this country he got such a warm welcome that he started to learn the language: “To understand their loveliness to me.” Somehow I have always felt attracted to the central and south-eastern European states. Although my father knows little about his family, leaving me with blanks about my roots, he does think his grandpa and ancestors were Gypsies. His father told him stories about travelling uncles and brothers selling stuff out of their cars in Romania and Hungary. I could be the son of Gypsies. My father’s skin is Gypsy-coloured, neither white nor black but somewhere in between. And my father too was a travelling salesman. Actually, I doubt I have Gypsy roots. My father hates music and he hates dancing. And I always felt an affinity for black people. Just recently, someone told me he had met a Nigerian man with the same last name I have. The man told him that it was quite common in Nigeria. As a child I was always amazed by the stuff my father was about to sell. Nearly every week our house morphed into a kind of wholesale market, full of stuff my father had bought from people who had gone out of business. One week my father bought and had to sell thousands of sausages; another week he bought and had to sell jeans that were decades out of style. But somehow he always succeeded. And on the rare occasion that he didn’t, he went to a bar where other salesman gathered, playing cards and betting their unsold goods in the hope of losing them and winning something more valuable instead. When I was a child we spent our holidays in Romania. I was five years old and my uncle also went along. He was a communist and drank a lot of Vodka, and I almost drowned in a lake because I could not swim. People said the lake wasn’t deep; I was playing with an inflatable beach toy and drifted away from the shore out into the lake. My nephew, who could swim, was told to keep an eye on me. Then the toy slipped away from me and I realized I couldn’t walk on water yet – and that the lake was deep. My nephew was too far away to help. I screamed. I went down. I came back up. I saw my father and mother standing at the edge of the lake, not moving. Their fear had beaten their love. I went down again. When I opened my eyes I was lying on the sand. A sailor, out fishing on the lake, had seen what had happened and rescued me. He moved his boat to where he saw me go under and dived into the water, picking me up like a coin on its way to the bottom. They say Jesus was a sailor. The same night I was outside with my mother, alone. We were standing on the roof of a small villa we had rented out in the Romanian woods. I looked at the stars and saw the Milky Way. It scared me. My mother noticed and said: “Put your thumb in front of your right eye and keep some space between. Close the other eye. Do you still see the stars?” I couldn’t. “Now you can see: if even your thumb is bigger than the sky and all the stars together, how big must you be?” - less tagged:   consciousness   Hungary   Romania   stars   moon   uniqueness   love   family   Gypsy    permalink  read: 4432  print  forward  comments: 1  add comment      name:  northern light, December 31st • all the others are stars...

Photo: uncle of my father, a travelling salesman.

Making love by Andre Platteel , November 12th

In one of the stories of Jorge Luis Borges, a group of people is asked to make a map of a city. It must be as detailed as possible, charting every street and river. Every time the mapmakers present their work they are sent back with the request to make the map even more detailed. Eventually, the mapmakers end up in the nearby desert, where they have enough room to produce a map that is an exact copy of the city. Then, when the men have nearly finished the map, a storm whips in and destroys it. Only a few pieces of the map are ever found. The experience of being conscious, being connected, is often referred to as the experience of ultimate love. Everything is love I have often heard. Everything is love I have often said myself (to myself). Consciousness as the source of all life can only be good, bad is nothing more than confusion. What is love? Not so long ago I was in Big Sur, California, a beautiful era of rough nature between Los Angeles and San Francisco. I was surrounded by thousands of trees, many of them many hundreds of years old, thousands even, and by many plants and animals I had never seen before, neither in reality nor in books. To me, it felt like true perfection: the beautiful colours, the bio-diversity and the astonishing vibration of energy. Hiking for hours caressed my system. Life was streaming through my veins. I felt connected. Being here felt like heaven. Harmonious. Right here one could experience that consciousness is simply love. Looking closer, however, I could see a battle: trees fighting to be the tallest around so they receive more light (and so take light away from the others trees); plants twisted around trees, initially protecting, later suffocating them; animals hunting and playing a deadly game at every moment. There was a war going on! Where did love and goodness go in this God-like nature? Are these trees, plants and animals confused? Or is the sensation of perfection that we often encounter in exquisite nature, and which we often tend to call love, actually based on a misconception? Are we confused in what we call love? We tend to see love as something that feels good, something that touches us. To be more specific: as something that pleases us. But is that all that love is? Going by what I have seen around me and in what I have experienced, love can also say no. Love can also hurt. Love can suffocate. Love can damage. Love can even destroy and kill. Love can be anything. Just like life – and just like consciousness, being all. But we do not refer to all when using love; we refer to only that what pleases what we have called 'I'. + more In one of the stories of Jorge Luis Borges, a group of people is asked to make a map of a city. It must be as detailed as possible, charting every street and river. Every time the mapmakers present their work they are sent back with the request to make the map even more detailed. Eventually, the mapmakers end up in the nearby desert, where they have enough room to produce a map that is an exact copy of the city. Then, when the men have nearly finished the map, a storm whips in and destroys it. Only a few pieces of the map are ever found. The experience of being conscious, being connected, is often referred to as the experience of ultimate love. Everything is love I have often heard. Everything is love I have often said myself (to myself). Consciousness as the source of all life can only be good, bad is nothing more than confusion. What is love? Not so long ago I was in Big Sur, California, a beautiful era of rough nature between Los Angeles and San Francisco. I was surrounded by thousands of trees, many of them many hundreds of years old, thousands even, and by many plants and animals I had never seen before, neither in reality nor in books. To me, it felt like true perfection: the beautiful colours, the bio-diversity and the astonishing vibration of energy. Hiking for hours caressed my system. Life was streaming through my veins. I felt connected. Being here felt like heaven. Harmonious. Right here one could experience that consciousness is simply love. Looking closer, however, I could see a battle: trees fighting to be the tallest around so they receive more light (and so take light away from the others trees); plants twisted around trees, initially protecting, later suffocating them; animals hunting and playing a deadly game at every moment. There was a war going on! Where did love and goodness go in this God-like nature? Are these trees, plants and animals confused? Or is the sensation of perfection that we often encounter in exquisite nature, and which we often tend to call love, actually based on a misconception? Are we confused in what we call love? We tend to see love as something that feels good, something that touches us. To be more specific: as something that pleases us. But is that all that love is? Going by what I have seen around me and in what I have experienced, love can also say no. Love can also hurt. Love can suffocate. Love can damage. Love can even destroy and kill. Love can be anything. Just like life – and just like consciousness, being all. But we do not refer to all when using love; we refer to only that what pleases what we have called 'I'. So why call consciousness ‘love’? What use is there in seeing the source of all being as nothing more than that what pleases us? Most of the time we only use love to represent a wish. We call something love because we want to receive it – love; love being no more than a desire: excluding everything that does not fit our need. If someone does not agree with us, if someone loves other things or has other desires, we do not feel connected with that person, we cannot see love anymore. We make love for ourselves. Is love a wanting that excludes? Can we ever experience love itself instead of a projection of our needs? And if so, can we call that experience love? Once we speak of love, the experience of love is blown away; try to turn love into a word and we find only fragments remain. The word love does not include our experience of love – we are mainly distanced from it, excluding the parts of the experience that do not fit our mental definition. It seems to me that every time we try to define what we experience, we try to define life itself. We move our being to a dry, lonely desert, where we create a map instead of immersing ourselves in the experience itself; we wait for the storm that will take away what we have created, leaving only traces of disillusion. Even if such a map is called love, consciousness cannot be love. Consciousness just is – including what we generally call love. - less tagged:   love   consciousness   wholeness   spirituality   Borges   desert   experience    permalink  read: 4258  print  forward  comments: 0  add comment      name:

Photo: André Platteel

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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