Nan-Nan: 11月 2010

ISBN 0-06-250217-4

"In the long run, what people think about shepherds and bakers becomes more important for them than their own Personal Legends." (23)

"Because people become fascinated with pitures and words, and wind up forgetting the Language of the World."

"And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one's dreams would have no meaning." (97) How naive. What a load of crap. And Andres M. believed it?

"But everything had changed. The boy was no longer at the oasis, and the oasis would never again have the same meaning it had had only yesterday. It would no longer be a place with fifty thousand palm trees and three hundred wells...From that day on, the oasis would be an empty place for her." (128) Because the boy had left. I know what that feels like.

"If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always comes back. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return." on love.

"Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World, and it will one day return there." My heart doesn't speak to me. Or sometimes it's too loud.

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."

'"Why don't people's hearts tell them to continue to follow their dreams?" the boy asked the alchemist.

"Because that's what makes a heart suffer most, and hearts don't like to suffer."'

"When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed." (139)

"Everything in th universe evolved. And, for wise men, gold is the metal that evolved the furthest...So gold, instead of being seen as a symbol of evolution, became the basis for conflict." (142)

"And then there were the others, who were interested only in gold. They never found the secret. They forgot that lead, copper, and iron have their own Personal Legends to fulfill. And anyone who interferes with the Personal Legend of another thing never will discover his own." (143) What a terrible curse.

"The threat of death makes people a lot more aware of their lives." (147)

"Yes, that's what love is. It's what makes the game become the falcon, the falcon become man, and man, in his turn, the desert. It's what turns lead into gold, and makes the gold return to the earth." (150)

"...the winds know everything. They blow across the world without a birthplace, and with no place to die." (151) I long to be wind.

'"...greatest problem is that, up until now, only the minerals and vegetables understand that all things are one. That there's no need for iron to be the same as copper, or copper the same as gold. Each performs its own exact function as a unique being, and everything would be a symphony of peace if the hand that wrote all this had stopped on the fifth day of creation."
"But there was a sixth day," the sun went on.' (155)

"...each thing has to transform itself into something better, and to acquire a new Personal Legend, until, someday, the Soul of the World becomes one thing only." (155)

"This is why alchemy exists. So that everyone will search for his treasure, find it, and then want to be better than he was in his former life. Lead will play its role until the world has no further need for lead; and then lead will have to turn itself into gold." (156) Cyclic motion in a straight line.

"The boy reach through to the Soul of the World, and saw that it was a part of the Soul of God. And he saw that the Soul of God was his own soul. And that he, a boy, could perform miracles." (158)

'"But this payment goes well beyond my generosity," the monk responded.
"Don't say that again. Life might be listening, and give you less the next time."' (161)

I can't stress again how much I like the product of theatre and dance. And no one can do it better than Pina. Not too much about the documentary needs to be said. It's fresh. It has depth. Pina's choreography involves me because it speaks about human nature and human interaction so blankly in its own abstract language.

Some of my favorite moments:

The large number of dancers on stage doing seemingly meaningless gestures but is amplified by repetition and mass.
The boy and his music stand and two sheets of loose paper flying every time he adjusts his place congruous to the unrequited love that exaggerates her attractiveness to the point of being extremely unattractive.
Much of the dance is about courtship. How do we make ourselves attractive? How do we attract attention?
The music.
The group session confessing their experience with love (I want to start a session like that).
The attachment that grows within the group and especially unmistakeable on the instructors. They fell in love, the way I fell in love with my Joy Theatre kids.
They also reminded me of how kids will give up, say they can't do it, with frankness. They won't be shy about it. I still give up. I am just more embarrassed. Point is not to give up because there's so much more to persistence. That's what I told the kids. That's what I myself need.
Moreover, kids in theatre, they can't grasp the meaning or expression from the get-go. But it's an amazing process to see them learning LINES then BLOCKING then BODY LANGUAGE then VOICING then EXPRESSION then MEANING (which probably also applies to me).