I am wondering if you have a copy of Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard (published 1978, my copy is a 1996 reprint, a Penguin Nature Classic edition)? He quotes Blake on page 22 (Section 1, Journal date September 29 [1973]) in a wonderful passage. Matthiessen reflects on the 'weather' engendered by individual circumstances... (he is walking in the Himalaya, and is stunned into thinking about life/death when he walks past a young girl who's lot in life is to move by pulling herself along on her hands...her legs do not work... and apparently never will.)
I appreciate what you offered us yesterday p.m.
Chick
On Feb 8, 2009, at 10:39 PM, Warren Lang wrote:
Chick,
Thanks for the Blake quote. It captures the reality of what we were talking about today in such lyrical terms. Definitely a keeper.Where did you find it?Warren
On Feb 8, 2009, at 7:49 PM, clindsay wrote:Hi Sangha,
We were talking this afternoon about weather as a metaphor for the changeability of our states of mind, and we were also talking about the hazards of hanging on to what bolsters the 'me' at nearly any cost.
And I remembered the passage below that I read yesterday ... written by William Blake who offers this:
'The meeting and parting of living things is as when clouds having come together drift apart again, or as when the leaves are parted from the trees. There is nothing we may call our own in a union that is but a dream...'
Chick
