121
" You can have the perfect message, but it may fall on deaf ears when the listener is not prepared or open to listening.These listening " planes" were first introduced by the American composer Aaron Copland (1900-1990) as they pertain to music . . . 1. The Sensual Plane: You’re aware of the music, but not engaged enough to have an opinion or judge it.2. The Expressive Plane: You become more engaged by paying attention, finding meaning beyond the music, and noticing how it makes you feel.3. The Musical Plane: You listen to the music with complete presence, noticing the musical elements of melody, harmony, pitch, tempo, rhythm, and form. "
123
" Nick bumps my shoulder with his, playfully. He kicks up some extra snow on purpose, whishing it onto my knees.
“You’re lucky you’re cute,” I tell him.
“Really?”
“Especially with that doggy breath.”
He scoops up some snow, makes it into a ball, bounces his hand up and down. “Take that back.”
I giggle. “Nope.”
I bend down to grab some snow and topple headfirst. The cold of it bites into my cheeks. I try to push myself up, but I can’t. I’m all awkward and clumsy with the snowshoes on.
Nick laughs.
I struggle some more.
He grabs me under my arms and hauls me up. Smiling, he sticks out his tongue, and with tiny little movements starts licking the snow off my cheeks. It should be disgusting. It’s not. It’s all warm, and good feeling, and amazing. I close my eyes and let him.
“You smell good,” he whispers.
“I haven’t showered.”
“Doesn’t matter, you smell good.”
His voice, sensual and warm, mellows me.
Our lips touch and part, touch again. I breathe him in. He moves his face away a little and studies me. I smile. I can’t help it.
“I like you,” I say. “A lot. Even with the whole werewolf thing.”
He smiles back. “I like you too.”
“A lot?”
“Mm-hmm,” he says, leaning in for another kiss. “A wicked lot. "
― Carrie Jones , Need (Need, #1)
124
" Breath (from the book Blue Bridge)
Whispering to myself
With every step I take,
Trying out names, for I know
There is something yet to be called …..
I know it, something up ahead
Just around the bend
Or over the rise –
A bird taking to the sky
From the edge of a jagged cliff –
A bird floating outwards
In silence ……. A silence
Waiting for a footstep
To crunch on stones,
For a voice to fling upward
Through sharp sunlight
With a name…… calling
Before the bird could call
Before the bird called.
Oh the bird was there alright
And sure it took flight
When it heard me approach
But it broke my heart
With a mighty croak!
So I’m sitting here playing
With a purple flower
Slender stem, no leaves
Purple fizz –
And it’s quiet again.
I am still
I am nothing
And the hill
Is a long, long slope
Down, down, down to the sea
Far below.
I could roll
I could run
I could scream
But I am nothing.
A cool wind blows
And the light is naked and nameless
And the rocks are faces of angels
And the bird in the sky wheels
And cries to forget the earth
And its ancient bones –
Oh, sensual pain –
Wings…. Wings…. Wings,
Singing wings.
If only I could begin
To describe the emptiness
Which fills me to the brim
With new breath
I might almost lose my name
And take instead a feather for my soul. "
― Jay Woodman
126
" Venerable age had not, for him, arranged that derelict landscape against which it is privileged to sit and pick its nose, break wind, and damn the course of youth groping among the obstacles erected, dutifully, by its own hands earlier, along the way of that sublime delusion known as the pursuit of happiness.
Not to be confused with the state of political bigotry, mental obstinacy, financial security, sensual atrophy, emotional penury, and spiritual collapse which, under the name “maturity”, animated lives around him, it might be said that Reverend Gwyon had reached maturity. "
― William Gaddis , The Recognitions
128
" Endless love and voluptuous appetite pervaded this stifling nave in which settled the ardent sap of the tropics. Renée was wrapped in the powerful bridals of the earth that gave birth to these dark growths, these colossal stamina; and the acrid birth-throes of this hotbed, of this forest growth, of this mass of vegetation aglow with the entrails that nourished it, surrounded her with disturbing odours. At her feet was the steaming tank, its tepid water thickened by the sap from the floating roots, enveloping her shoulders with a mantle of heavy vapours, forming a mist that warmed her skin like the touch of a hand moist with desire. Overhead she could smell the palm trees, whose tall leaves shook down their aroma. And more than the stifling heat, more than the brilliant light, more than the great dazzling flowers, like faces laughing or grimacing between the leaves, it was the odours that overwhelmed her. An indescribable perfume, potent, exciting, composed of a thousand different perfumes, hung about her; human exudation, the breath of women, the scent of hair; and breezes sweet and swooningly faint were blended with breezes coarse and pestilential, laden with poison. But amid this strange music of odours, the dominant melody that constantly returned, stifling the sweetness of the vanilla and the orchids' pungency, was the penetrating, sensual smell of flesh, the smell of lovemaking escaping in the early morning from the bedroom of newlyweds. "
― Émile Zola , La Curée
131
" Abhinavagupta does not prescribe a hermit’s life for that Shiva yogin, who is free to live without restrictions, to remain in the household, and to participate in pleasures of the senses and the mind within the limits of the currently acceptable social standards. In other words, one is free to live a normal life and at the same time to pursue some method of Trika yoga. As soon as the seeker’s practice in yoga yields the experience of Self-bliss, worldly enjoyments automatically lose their power and fascination, and one’s senses develop a spontaneous indifference, known as anadaravirakti, to former pleasures. Once seekers have become expert practitioners in the experience of Self-bliss, they are able to move freely through worldly enjoyments without any fear of spiritual pollution. Such enjoyments can actually serve to further illumine the extraordinary experience of Self-bliss. As Abhinavagupta explains:The mind (of a Shiva yogin) does not become wet (or stained) from within, just like the rind of a dried gourd which has no opening, even if it dives deep into the water of sensual pleasures (Malinivijayavarttika, I.108).— B. N. Pandit, Specific Principles of Kashmir Shaivism (3rd ed., 2008), p. 94. "
132
" Kashmir Shaivism also developed an integrated and effective method of spiritual practice that includes intense devotion, the study of correct knowledge, and a special type of yoga unknown to other systems of practical philosophy. These three approaches are meant to be carefully integrated to produce a strong and vibrant practice. Yoga is the main path that leads to Self-realization, theoretical knowledge saves yogins from getting caught at some blissful but intermediary level of spiritual progress, and devotion provides them the strength and focus with which to digest correctly the powerful results of yoga and so avoid their misuse. This is a practice for both the mind and the heart. The teachings offers offer a fresh and powerful understanding of life that develops the faculties of the mind, while the devotional aspects of Kashmir Shaivism expand the faculties of a student’s heart. Combined together, both faculties help students reach the highest goal to which Shaiva yoga can dead them.
The yoga system of Kashmir Shaivism is known as the Trika system. It includes many methods of yoga, which have been classified into three groups known as sambhava, sakta, and anava. Sambhava yoga consists of practices in direct realization of the truth, without making any effort at meditation, contemplation, or the learning of texts. The emphasis is on correct being, free from all aspects of becoming. This yoga transcends the use of mental activity. Sakta yoga consists of many types of practices in contemplation on the true nature of one’s real Self. Anava yoga includes various forms of contemplative meditation on objects other than one’s real Self, such as the mind, the life-force along with its five functions (the five pranas), the physical form along with its nerve-centers, the sounds of breathing, and different aspects of time and space.
Trika yoga teaches a form of spiritual practice that is specific to Kashmir Shaivism. This system, along with its rituals, has been discussed in detail in Abhinavagupta’s voluminous Tantraloka, which is one of the world’s great treatises on philosophy and theology. Unlike many other forms of yoga, the Trika system is free from all types of repression of the mind, suppression of the emotions and instincts, and starvation of the senses. It eliminates all self-torturing practices, austere vows or penance, and forcible renunciation. Shaiva practitioners need not leave their homes, or roam as begging monks. Indifference (vairagya) to worldly life is not a precondition to for practicing Trika yoga. Sensual pleasures automatically become dull in comparison with the indescribable experience of Self-bliss. This is a transforming experience that naturally gives rise to a powerful form of spontaneous indifference to worldly pleasures. Finally, regardless of caste, creed, and sex, Trika yoga is open to all people, who through the Lord’s grace, have developed a yearning to realize the truth, and who become devoted to the Divine.
— B. N. Pandit, Specific Principles of Kashmir Shaivism (3rd ed., 2008), p. xxiii-xxiv "
― Balajinnatha Pandita , Specific Principles of Kashmir Saivism
134
" Until that day at the dress department Lucie had been many things to me: a child, a source of comfort, a balm, an escape from myself; she was literally everything for me – but a woman. Our love in the physical sense of the word had proceeded no further than the kissing stage. And even the way she kissed was childish (I'd fallen in love with those kisses, long but chaste, with dry closed lips counting each other's fine striations as they touched in emotion).In short, until then I had felt tenderness for Lucie, but no sensual desire; I'd grown so accustomed to its absence that I wasn't even conscious of it; my relationship with Lucie seemed so beautiful that I could never have dreamed anything was missing. Everything fit so harmoniously together: Lucie, her monastically gray clothes, and my monastically chaste relation with her. "
― Milan Kundera , The Joke
135
" You’ll be stronger, Alayna, having explored the part of you that you’ve been afraid to know. I’ll have to stop if you tell me to, so you’ll actually hold the power, but you won’t tell me to stop. You’ll beg me not to, and when you leave here, you’ll believe you’re the gorgeous, sensual being I see in front of me. "
― Scarlet Wolfe , One Urge (One Urge, One Plea, Keep Me Trilogy, #1)