Paulo Coelho

Without solitude, Love will not stay long by your side.

Because Love needs to rest as well, so that it can journey through the heavens and reveal itself in other forms.

Without solitude, no plant or animal can survive, no soil can remain productive for any length of time, no child can learn about life, no artist can create, no work can grow and be transformed.

Solitude is not the absence of Love, but its complement.
Solitude is not the absence of company, but the moment when our soul is free to speak to us and help us decide what to do with our life.

Therefore, blessed are those who do not fear solitude, who are not afraid of their own company, who are not always desperately looking for something to do, something to amuse themselves with, something to judge.

If you are never alone, you cannot know yourself.
And if you do not know yourself, you will begin to fear the void.

But the void does not exist. A vast world lies hidden in our soul, waiting to be discovered. There it is, with all its strength intact, but it is so new and so powerful that we are afraid to acknowledge its existence.

Just as Love is the divine condition, so solitude is the human condition. And for those who understand the miracle of life, those two states peacefully coexist.
 
 
taken from “MANUSCRIPT FOUND IN ACCRA”

In the monastery of Sceta, Abbot Lucas gathered the brothers together for a sermon.

‘May you all be forgotten,’ he said.

‘But why?’ one of the brothers asked. ‘Does that mean that our example can never serve to help someone in need?’

‘In the days when everyone was just, no one paid any attention to people who behaved in an exemplary manner,’ replied the abbot.

” ‘Everyone did their best, never thinking that by behaving thus they were doing their duty by their brother. They loved their neighbour because they understood that this was part of life and they were merely obeying a law of nature.

“They shared their possessions in order not to accumulate more than they could carry, for journeys lasted a whole lifetime.

“They lived together in freedom, giving and receiving, making no demands on others and blaming no one.

“That is why their deeds were never spoken of and that is why they left no stories. If only we could achieve the same thing now: to make goodness such an ordinary thing that there would be no need to praise those who practise it.”

Why Greece?

by Keith Parkins

Early in the day Paulo Coelho held a press conference.

The party started with cocktails, followed by prayers in many languages.

St Joseph is the patron saint of workers, we should remember that many people have lost their jobs and think of them.

That is why the party this year was being held in Greece. It gets a very bad press, the workers slandered as lazy. By holding the party in Athens, it gave people the chance to see a different side of Greece, the real Greece.

We are all travellers, we then have a different view of life if we travel.

The party was held in a roof top restaurant with excellent views of Athens, the centre piece being the Acropolis.

At midnight, after eating, after Greek dancing, and following plate smashing, a rock group played until 2am.

Reading from By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept, Paulo smashed a plate. This was symbolic of breaking the link with what is bad, what is holding us back.

At 1am the rock group was joined by Rudolf Schenker, who was then joined on vocals by Paulo Coelho performing Still Loving You.

Book signing.

All good things have to come to an end. The party ended around 3am. Some of us remained in the hotel lobby chatting. I finally got to my hotel around 4-30am. Others were checking out to travel to the airport to fly home.

On leaving, a special present, a relief of a classical subject, the likes of which can be found in the Acropolis Museum.

A special thanks to Paulo for such an excellent party.

photo by Paulo Coelho

By Paulo Coelho

All creative processes, be they in literature, engineering, computing – and even in love – always respect the same rules: the cycle of nature. Here is a list of the stages along this process:

a] ploughing the field: the moment the soil is turned, oxygen penetrates places it was unable to previously. The field gets a fresh look, the earth which was on top is now below, and that which was underneath has come to the surface. This process of interior revolution is very important – because, just as the field’s new look will see sunlight for the first time, and be dazzled by it, a new assessment of our values will allow us to see life innocently, without ingenuity. Thus we will be prepared for the miracle of inspiration. A good creator must know how to continually turn over his values, and never be content with that which he believes he understands.

b] sowing: all work is the fruit of contact with life. A creative man cannot lock himself in an ivory tower; he must be in contact with his fellow men, and share his human condition. He never knows, at the outset, which things will be important to him in the future, so the more intense his life is, the more possibilities he will create for an original language. Le Corbusier said that: as long as man tried to fly by imitating birds, he couldn’t succeed. The same applies to the artist: although he translates emotions, the language he is translating is not fully understood by him, and if he tries to imitate or control his inspiration, he will never obtain that which he desires. He must allow his life to sow the fertile soil of his unconscious.

c] growth: there is a time in which the work writes itself, freely, at the bottom of the author’s soul – before it dares show itself. In the case of literature, for example, the book influences the writer, and vice versa. It is this moment which the Brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade refers to, when he states that we should never try to recover lost verses, for they never deserved to see the light of day. I know people who, during a growth period, spend their whole time furiously taking notes on everything which comes into their head, without respecting that which is being written in the unconscious. The result is that the notes, which are the fruit of memory, end up disturbing the fruit of inspiration. The creator must respect the time of gestation, although he knows – just like the farmer – that he is only partially in control of his field; it is subject to drought and floods. But if he knows how to wait, the stronger plants, which can resist bad weather, will come to light with great force.

d] the harvest: the moment when man manifests on a conscious plane that which he sowed and allowed to grow. If he harvests early, the fruit is green, if he harvests late, the fruit is rotten. Every artist recognizes the arrival of this moment; although some aspects may not have matured fully, some ideas not be crystal clear, they reorganize themselves as the work is produced. Without fear and with great discipline, he understands that he must work from dawn to dusk, until the work is finished.

And what to do with the results of the harvest? Again, we look to Mother Nature: she shares everything with everyone. An artist who wishes to keep his work to himself, is not being fair with that which he received from the present moment, nor with the inheritance and teachings of his forefathers. If we leave the grain stored in the granary, it will go bad, even though it was harvested at the right time. When the harvest is over, the time comes to share, without fear or shame, your own soul.

That is the artist’s mission, however painful or glorious.

Consulado do Brasil, manifeste-se por favor

Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2013 22:46:43 +0100
Subject: AJUDA/ AYUDA URGENTE- INDIGNANTE

Caros amigos

Os pido ayuda. La esposa del portero de mi urbanización, una brasileña casada con un español, Telma de Souza Lima, tiene a su madre, Equitéria de Souza Lima, detenida en el aeropuerto de Barajas por no llevar con ella la carta de invitación y Euros suficientes para su estancia.

Resulta que Telma está casada con un ciudadano español, Diego Viedna Artero, y su madre ha venido a España ayudarla porque Diego se encuentra ahora mismo ingresado en el hospital Infanta Sofia, en fase terminal de cáncer. Le quedan pocos dias o semanas. Por eso, la señora Equitéria, ha salido desde Brasil sin esos documentos; porque Telma, ocupandose de su marido, no ha pensado en esa posibilidad. Detalle: no es la primera entrada de Equiteria en España.

Telma tiene ahora mismo a una abogada con ella en el aeropuerto, pero la policia de fronteras ha emitido sentencia de deportación para mañana a las 15 horas y hay poco que se pueda hacer. A no ser que los medios de comunicación, tanto en Brasil cuanto en España se muevan, o algun contacto en Ministerio de Exterior en España, o el Consulado de Brasil, o algún Juez de peso que se pueda pronunciar o intervenir contra esa injusticia profundamente indignante y deshumana, Equiteria volvera a Brasil mañana a las 15 horas, y Telma se quedará sin el apoyo de su madre en esos momentos dificiles.

Os agradezco de corazón a los copiados en BCC, si podeí­s enviar ese mensaje a los medios a los cuales tienen aceso en los dos lados del Atlantico, o personas de influencia polí­tica que sé que conocen, para que una decisión absolutamente arbitraria un policia de fronteras impida a una persona humilde de apoyar a su hija en ese momento de perdida y dolor.

Muchas gracias por qualquier ayuda,

Iona de Macedo TEL: +34 639 185121

I held his hand. He knew about the great mysteries of the Goddess, but he knew about as much about love as much as I; even though he had traveled so far.

And he would have to pay a price: the initiative. Because the woman pays the highest price: the surrender.

We held hands for a long time. I could see in his eyes the ancient fears that true love creates and proves. I read the memory of rejection from the previous night, the long time spent apart, the years in the monastery in search of a world where these things did not happen.

I could see in his eyes the thousands of times I could have imagined this moment, the scenarios built around us, the color of our hair and the color of my clothes. I wanted to say “yes”, he would be welcome, that my heart had won the battle. I wanted to say how much I loved him, how much I desired the moment as well.

But I kept silent. I watched, as if in a dream, his inner struggle. I saw that he had before him my “no”, the fear of losing me, the harsh words he had heard in similar moments – because we all go through it, and accumulate scars.

His eyes began to shine. He knew I was winning all those barriers.

So I released one hand, grabbed a cup and put it at the edge of the table.

“It’s going to fall,” he said.

“Exactly. I want you to fall,” I said.

“By breaking a glass?” he asked.

“Yes, by breaking a glass. A seemingly simple gesture, but it involves fears that we will never come to understand,” I responded. “What’s wrong with breaking a cheap glass, when we have all done this without meaning to at some point in our lives?”

“Breaking a glass?” he repeated, “Why?”

“I can give some explanations,” I answered, “but to be truthful it’s only for the sake of breaking it.”

“For your sake?”

“Of course not.”

He looked at the glass on the edge of the table , I could tell he was worried about it falling.

I wanted to say that it’s a rite of passage, as he’s often said. That it’s forbidden. That glasses do not break it on purpose. That when we walk into restaurants or into our homes, we are always careful to move the glasses that are on the edge of the table. Our world requires us to make sure that the glasses do not fall on the floor.

However, I kept thinking, when broken by accident, we see that it was not so serious. The waiter says “don’t worry about it”, and I’ve never seen a broken glass be billed on a restaurant tab. Breaking glasses is a part of life and do not cause any harm to us, the restaurant, or the next person to sit at that table.

I took a bump on the table. The glass shook, but did not fall.

“Be careful!” he said instinctively.

“Break the glass,” I insisted.

Break the glass, I thought to myself, because it is a symbolic gesture. Try to understand that within myself, things were breaking of much more importance than a glass, and I’m happy for that. Look to your own inner struggles and break this glass.

Our parents taught us to be careful with glasses and with our bodies. They taught us that the passions of childhood are impossible; we should not remove men from the priesthood, that people do not perform miracles and that no one goes on a journey without knowing where he wants to go.

Break this cup, please, I thought to myself, and release of all these damn misconceptions, the habit you have of only doing that which everyone agrees with.

“Break this glass,” I say again.

He fixed his eyes on mine. Then, slowly, he slid his hand over the table, to touch the glass. In a quick movement, he pushed it to the ground.

The sound of broken glass caught everyone’s attention. Instead of covering up the broken glass or apologizing, he looked at me and smiled. I smiled back.

“Don’t worry about it!” yelled the waiter from across the restaurant.

But he did not listen. He had already risen from his seat, grabbed me by the hair and kissed me.

I pulled on his hair, hugged him with all my strength, bit his lips, felt his tongue moving inside my mouth. It was a kiss that had a lot attached to it, that had been born along the rivers of our childhood, when we did not understand the meaning of love. It was a kiss that was suspended in the air while we were growing up. It had traveled around the world through the memory of a medal, which was hidden behind stacks of books used to study for a public job. A kiss that had been lost many times before and had now had been found. At that moment, the kiss ended years of searching, disappointments and impossible dreams.

I kissed him hard. The few people who were at the bar must have looked and thought they were seeing just a kiss. They did not know at that moment, that kiss was the summary of my life, of his life, the life of any person who hopes, dreams and seeks his way under the sun.

In that minute, in that kiss, were all of the happy moments I have ever lived.

in “By the river Piedra I sat down and wept”

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream.

The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food.
The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him.
She did so without hesitation.

The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime.

But, a few days later, he came back to return the stone to the wise woman.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “I know how valuable this stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious.

“Teach me what you have within you that enabled you to give me this stone.”

story sent by David

Una mujer sabia que viajaba por las montañas encontró una piedra preciosa en un arroyo.
Al dí­a siguiente se cruzó con otro viajero que estaba hambriento, y la mujer abrió su bolsa para compartir con él su comida.

El viajero hambriento vio la piedra preciosa en la bolsa, se quedó admirado de su belleza y le pidió que se la regalara.
La mujer lo hizo sin dudar.

El viajero partió, alegrándose de su buena suerte. Sabí­a que la joya valí­a lo suficiente como para darle seguridad por el resto de su vida.

Pero a los pocos dí­as regresó en busca de la mujer sabia. Cuando la encontró, le devolvió la piedra.
“He estado pensando” dijo. “Sé cuán valiosa es esta piedra, pero se la devuelvo con la esperanza de que pueda obsequiarme algo mucho más precioso.”

“Deme lo que hay en su interior que le permitió regalarme la piedra”

trad: Karem Molina Escobar

“I’m going in search of the adventure of being alive.

And it’s complicated: why am I not looking for happiness when everyone has taught me that happiness is the only goal worth pursuing?

Why am i going to risk taking a path that no one else is taking?
After all, what is happiness?

Love, they tell me. But love doesn’t bring and never has brought happiness.

On the contrary, its a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield; its sleepless nights, asking ourselves all the time if we’re doing the right thing. Real love is composed of ecstacy and agony.All right then, peace.

Peace? If we look Nature, there is no peace.
The winter does battle with the summer, the sun and d moon never meet, the tiger chases the man, who’s afraid of the dog, who chases the cat, who chases the mouse, who frightens the man.

Money brings happiness. Fine.
In that case, everyone who earns enough to have a high standard of living would be able to stop work.
But then they’re more troubled than ever, as if they were afraid of losing everything.
Money attracts money, that’s true. Poverty might bring unhappiness, but money wont necessarily bring happiness.I spent a lot of my life looking for happiness, now what i want is joy.

Joy is like sex – it begins and ends. I want pleasure. I want to be contended, but happiness?
I no longer fall into that trap.”
 
 
Athena, the main character in ( “The Witch of Portobello” )

In 1986, I went for the first and only time on the pilgrimage known as the Way to Santiago, an experience I described in my first book. We had just finished walking up a small hill, a village appeared on the horizon, and it was then that my guide, whom I shall call Petrus (although that was not his name), said to me:

– We must never stop dreaming. Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a meal does for the body. Many times in our lives we see our dreams shattered and our desires frustrated, but we have to continue dreaming. If we don’t, our soul dies

‘The Good Fight is the one we Fight because our heart asks it of us.The Good Fight is the one that’s fought in the name of our dreams. When we are young our dreams first explode inside us with all of their force, we are very courageous, but we haven’t yet learned how to Fight. With great effort, we learn how to Fight, but by then we no longer have the courage to go into combat. So we turn against ourselves and do battle within. We become our own worst enemy. We say that our dreams were childish, or too difficult to realize, or the result or our not having known enough about life. We kill our dreams because we are afraid to Fight the Good Fight.

“The first symptom of the process of killing our dreams is lack of time. The busiest people I have known in my life always have time enough to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The Truth is, they are afraid to Fight the Good Fight…

“The second symptom of the death of our dreams lies in our certainties. Because we don’t want to see life as a grand adventure, we begin to think of ourselves as wise and fair and correct in asking so little of life. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day existence, and we hear the sound of lances breaking, we smell the dust and the sweat, and we see the great defeats and the fire in the eyes of the warriors. But we never see the delight, the immense delight in the hearts of those engaged in the battle. For them, neither victory nor defeat is important; what’s important is only that they are Fighting the Good Fight.

“And, finally, the third symptom of the passing of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon; we ask for nothing grand, and we cease to demand anything more than we are willing to give. In that state we think of ourselves as being mature; we put aside the fantasies of our youth, and we seek personal and professional achievement. We are surprised when people our age say that they still want this or that out of life. But really, deep in our hearts, we know that what has happened is that we have renounced the battle for our dreams-we have refused to Fight the Good Fight.

“When we renounce our dreams and find peace, we go through a period of tranquility. But the dead dreams begin to rot within us and to infect our entire being. We become cruel to those around us, and then we begin to direct this cruelty against ourselves.
“What we sought to avoid in combat-disappointment and defeat-came upon us because of our cowardice. And one day, the dead, spoiled dreams make it difficult to breath, and we actually seek death. It’s death that frees us from out certainties, from our work, and from that terrible peace of Sunday afternoons.”

in “The Pilgrimage”(1987)

Lou Salome, P. Ree and Frederic Nietzche

Lou Salomé‘s mother took her to Rome, Italy when she was 21. At a literary salon in the city, Salomé became acquainted with Paul Rée, an author and compulsive gambler with whom she proposed living in an academic commune. After two months, the two became partners. On 13 May 1882, Rée’s friend Friedrich Nietzsche joined the duo. The three travelled with Salomé’s mother through Italy and considered where they would set up their “Winterplan” commune. Arriving in Leipzig, Germany in October, Salomé and Rée separated from Nietzsche after a falling-out between Nietzsche and Salomé, in which Salomé believed that Nietzsche was desperately in love with her.

She was singularly clever and attractive. One after another they all fell in love with her like Nietzsche the moment he saw her and according to legend said: “What star have we both come from to meet here?”

Nietzsche’s mother was tradition-minded and disliked Lou, but Nietzsche thought that his sister would side with him against their mother. He failed to understand that his sister was a schemer. As a born spinster she did not appreciate the way Lou held center stage.

She wrote more than a dozen novels, a study of Ibsen’s woman characters and a famous book on her friend Friedrich Nietzsche, “Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werke”, 1894, one of the most informative books of the 19th century on Nietzsche’s work .

She also edited a memory-book on her lifelong close friend and onetime lover, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, after his death in 1926. Among her works is also a book she wrote during her last years based on memories of her life as a free woman.

In her memoirs, which were first published in their original German in 1951, she goes into depth about matters of her faith and her relationships.

“Whoever reaches into a rosebush may seize a handful of flowers; but no matter how many one holds, it’s only a small portion of the whole. Nevertheless, a handful is enough to experience the nature of the flowers. Only if we refuse to reach into the bush, because we can’t possibly seize all the flowers at once, or if we spread out our handful of roses as if it were the whole of the bush itself — only then does it bloom apart from us, unknown to us, and we are left alone.”

Salomé is said to have remarked in her last days, “I have really done nothing but work all my life, work … why?” And in her last hours, as if talking to herself, she is reported to have said, “If I let my thoughts roam I find no one. The best, after all, is death.”

_______________________________________________

Lou Andreas-Salomé, nascida Louise von Salomé, (Sí£o Petesburgo, 12 de fevereiro de 1861 “” Gotinga, 5 de fevereiro de 1937) foi uma intelectual alemí£, nascida na Rússia.

Lou Andreas-Salomé foi uma bela mulher que escandalizou a sociedade e quebrou regras morais. Teve vários amantes. Conheceu Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, Rainer Maria Rilke, Paul Rée, entre outros grandes homens. Mulher sensí­vel, tinha mito de sedutora.

A produí§í£o literária de Lou esteve sempre muito ligada aos seus envolvimentos amorosos e da relaí§í£o com Rainer Maria Rilke, aos 36 anos, resultaram obras fundamentais da escritora como “A humanidade da mulher” e “Reflexíµes sobre o problema do amor”.

Ouse, ouse… ouse tudo!!

Ní£o tenha necessidade de nada!
Ní£o tente adequar sua vida a modelos,
nem queira vocíª mesmo ser um modelo para ninguém.
Acredite: a vida lhe dará poucos presentes.
Se vocíª quer uma vida, aprenda… a roubá-la!
Ouse, ouse tudo! Seja na vida o que vocíª é, aconteí§a o que acontecer.
Ní£o defenda nenhum princí­pio, mas algo de bem mais maravilhoso:
algo que está em nós e que queima como o fogo da vida!!