100 Days And Nights 1000 Years Ago

July 31st 2011

Their ladies behave like peasants: they have no refinement. I thought I had hidden my disgust at their common manners, when Zora told me that my face did constantly reveal my true thoughts and that the ladies were offended but hadn’t dared to tell me. She told me that there was much more going on between them and between us than I knew. “There are so many signals,” she said, “and some of them even I don’t fully understand.” Apparently there are signals for the following: when to cast down your eyes. When to speak. When not to reply with words but to respond by levitating. When not to touch. When to bow almost imperceptibly, with a flutter. When to wave your hands. When not to cross your legs. And so on. As it turns out, while I was judging them, they were judging me just as harshly, which is a relief. “What should I do?” I asked Zora, and she said time would heal the rift as long as I kept an open mind. I didn’t know what she meant by that, “keep an open mind”. Was that a local pet? She laughed. Didn’t I know that the mind could be closed—she made a face and indeed, she looked like a smooth stone surface, impenetrable and indistinguishable. Then she opened her face: “Look at this,” she said. Her whole demeanor changed, as if she stepped out of a dimmed room into the light. Now, her eyes said “I will follow you anywhere.” I saw what she meant and I tried it myself. When I unclose my mind now, it includes everybody and everything around me: there’s no space for judgement when I’m busy keeping the gate open.

#72/100 days 2011. Illustration: Philosophy Presenting the Seven Liberal Arts to Boethius (detail), miniature in a French manuscript of The Consolation of Philosophy attributed to the Coëtivy Master, about 1460–70.

Posted at 11:51am and tagged with: Zora, Gisela, Magyars, habits, signals, Boethius, ladies, court,.

Their ladies behave like peasants: they have no refinement. I thought I had hidden my disgust at their common manners, when Zora told me that my face did constantly reveal my true thoughts and that the ladies were offended but hadn’t dared to tell me. She told me that there was much more going on between them and between us than I knew. “There are so many signals,” she said, “and some of them even I don’t fully understand.” Apparently there are signals for the following: when to cast down your eyes. When to speak. When not to reply with words but to respond by levitating. When not to touch. When to bow almost imperceptibly, with a flutter. When to wave your hands. When not to cross your legs. And so on. As it turns out, while I was judging them, they were judging me just as harshly, which is a relief. “What should I do?” I asked Zora, and she said time would heal the rift as long as I kept an open mind. I didn’t know what she meant by that, “keep an open mind”. Was that a local pet? She laughed. Didn’t I know that the mind could be closed—she made a face and indeed, she looked like a smooth stone surface, impenetrable and indistinguishable. Then she opened her face: “Look at this,” she said. Her whole demeanor changed, as if she stepped out of a dimmed room into the light. Now, her eyes said “I will follow you anywhere.” I saw what she meant and I tried it myself. When I unclose my mind now, it includes everybody and everything around me: there’s no space for judgement when I’m busy keeping the gate open.
#72/100 days 2011. Illustration: Philosophy Presenting the Seven Liberal Arts to Boethius (detail), miniature in a French manuscript of The Consolation of Philosophy attributed to the Coëtivy Master, about 1460–70.

July 27th 2011

8 notes |#

“Gentlemen,” said the queen to the assembled warlords, “there were five different types of butterflies on a flower in my garden this morning. They were getting along wonderfully. If you asked me which was the best or most beautiful of them all, I wouldn’t know which to pick or how to describe them.” She glanced around the room where the five chiefs stood. They were all at odds with each other and with the crown, and they were meeting to either settle their conflicts or escalate to a full-fledged war. The men were heavy-looking and bearded except for one, who had a long, red, angry scar across his chin. Queen Gizella was known for her eccentricities and her similes. This was the woman who’d bewitched both the Byzantine emperor and the pope, a high-born without the affectations of the nobles, and without falseness. There were a few among those present who envied the king his wife. “It is plain, my queen,” said the scarred squire, “that you wish us to flutter around your face like butterflies, who’re also drawn to light, as we are drawn to your glamour.” This was a moment of dangerous flattery, because the man lied. Surely, Gisela thought, his tongue was black from lies. “But of course,” said the queen, “I thank you kindly for your apt compliment. I merely wished to help you onto the path towards amiable negotiations so that together you can bring peace and prosperity to our land. It is like a garden between high hills, this land.” She smiled at the warriors, who’d already braced themselves for controversy, and were caught off guard by her soft response. Later, when they entered the room reserved for the parley, there were freshly cut, scented flowers on the table, making the butterfly in each of them leap at the sight without them knowing it. They began their talks in an unexpectedly good mood, sobered by the sensations of beauty, and Gisela’s female reign had once again subtly succeeded.

#68/100 days 2011. Drawing: “Five butterflies” by Taffimai Metallumai.

Posted at 6:49pm and tagged with: Gisela, Taffimai, 100days2011, 68,.

“Gentlemen,” said the queen to the assembled warlords, “there were five different types of butterflies on a flower in my garden this morning. They were getting along wonderfully. If you asked me which was the best or most beautiful of them all, I wouldn’t know which to pick or how to describe them.” She glanced around the room where the five chiefs stood. They were all at odds with each other and with the crown, and they were meeting to either settle their conflicts or escalate to a full-fledged war. The men were heavy-looking and bearded except for one, who had a long, red, angry scar across his chin. Queen Gizella was known for her eccentricities and her similes. This was the woman who’d bewitched both the Byzantine emperor and the pope, a high-born without the affectations of the nobles, and without falseness. There were a few among those present who envied the king his wife. “It is plain, my queen,” said the scarred squire, “that you wish us to flutter around your face like butterflies, who’re also drawn to light, as we are drawn to your glamour.” This was a moment of dangerous flattery, because the man lied. Surely, Gisela thought, his tongue was black from lies. “But of course,” said the queen, “I thank you kindly for your apt compliment. I merely wished to help you onto the path towards amiable negotiations so that together you can bring peace and prosperity to our land. It is like a garden between high hills, this land.” She smiled at the warriors, who’d already braced themselves for controversy, and were caught off guard by her soft response. Later, when they entered the room reserved for the parley, there were freshly cut, scented flowers on the table, making the butterfly in each of them leap at the sight without them knowing it. They began their talks in an unexpectedly good mood, sobered by the sensations of beauty, and Gisela’s female reign had once again subtly succeeded.
#68/100 days 2011. Drawing: “Five butterflies” by Taffimai Metallumai.

July 23rd 2011

11 notes |#

Father Mary goes down on one knee. He looks at me and he doesn’t. Right before death, men enter a waiting hall where they see further and deeper than before, I think. A warrior swings a battle axe. There’s no battle here, just a child and a bunch of holy men. The warrior’s axe comes down on the neck of the monk. The head comes off more easily than I expected it would. Mary wasn’t happy with his name, I don’t know why this is important just now. The head rolls around on the forest floor. The warrior wipes his axe and turns to the next monk, who’s kneeling. I don’t understand why nobody is crying or screaming. This might be a dream. Why would a priest otherwise be called Mary? One of the fighters lifts the frock of a monk. He finds another frock under it. He lifts that one, too, but there’s no end to the frocks. Now I’m almost sure this is a dream. I wonder what the pagan will find under the last frock, if there’s one. A foul smell comes out of the fog. This is where I’m going, into a nondescript place, a place wet with red dew. I know this scene is but a bubble of my fear but it doesn’t matter. The future is a scary beast to me right now.

#64/100 Days 2011. Photo: Pagans kill Christians in Pliska, Vatican Library.

Posted at 11:17am and tagged with: pagans, christians, dream, gisela, frock, monk, axe,.

Father Mary goes down on one knee. He looks at me and he doesn’t. Right before death, men enter a waiting hall where they see further and deeper than before, I think. A warrior swings a battle axe. There’s no battle here, just a child and a bunch of holy men. The warrior’s axe comes down on the neck of the monk. The head comes off more easily than I expected it would. Mary wasn’t happy with his name, I don’t know why this is important just now. The head rolls around on the forest floor. The warrior wipes his axe and turns to the next monk, who’s kneeling. I don’t understand why nobody is crying or screaming. This might be a dream. Why would a priest otherwise be called Mary? One of the fighters lifts the frock of a monk. He finds another frock under it. He lifts that one, too, but there’s no end to the frocks. Now I’m almost sure this is a dream. I wonder what the pagan will find under the last frock, if there’s one. A foul smell comes out of the fog. This is where I’m going, into a nondescript place, a place wet with red dew. I know this scene is but a bubble of my fear but it doesn’t matter. The future is a scary beast to me right now.
#64/100 Days 2011. Photo: Pagans kill Christians in Pliska, Vatican Library.

July 18th 2011

2 notes |#

If you let me take three things to heaven, this is what I will choose: my eyes, for they have seen beauty; my left hand, which can bring a drawing to life; and the pillow in which I’ve cried my dreams of so many years. The pillow is worn, as I am. I am one of those who care about time. Time waters life. Life goes sour when time runs out. My time is running out. From my bed I can see some sky, which means more to me than it once did, though I’m less able to say what that meaning is. I slowly walked through the library today, still upright, and smiled at the nuns bent over their books: I remember the awe I once felt before the spoken word. It was the awe of the first night with a lover. I asked a young one, Hildegard it was, what she was reading, and she said she was looking at Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. I could hear from the way she said it that she was in love, too. That she had a crush on words that made her thighs quiver. I said that my eyes were tired, though in truth I have all but gone blind, and asked her to recite something she found memorable, and she said, her eyes closed, “What is thy art? To be good.” And I continued, my eyes closed, too, for I know this book by heart: “We must not chale and fret at that which happens.” I put my left hand on the book; I leaned on Hildegard for a moment and she leaned on me, and I was breathing the book through my hand and through the young woman both.

#59/100 Days 2011. Photo: Albrecht Dürer, Self Portrait with a Pillow (1493). The quotes in the text are from book XI of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (167 AD). Published in Blue Fifth Review as “Book Breath”.

Posted at 9:31pm and tagged with: Albrecht Dürer, Gisela, age, Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, words,.

If you let me take three things to heaven, this is what I will choose: my eyes, for they have seen beauty; my left hand, which can bring a drawing to life; and the pillow in which I’ve cried my dreams of so many years. The pillow is worn, as I am. I am one of those who care about time. Time waters life. Life goes sour when time runs out. My time is running out. From my bed I can see some sky, which means more to me than it once did, though I’m less able to say what that meaning is. I slowly walked through the library today, still upright, and smiled at the nuns bent over their books: I remember the awe I once felt before the spoken word. It was the awe of the first night with a lover. I asked a young one, Hildegard it was, what she was reading, and she said she was looking at Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. I could hear from the way she said it that she was in love, too. That she had a crush on words that made her thighs quiver. I said that my eyes were tired, though in truth I have all but gone blind, and asked her to recite something she found memorable, and she said, her eyes closed, “What is thy art? To be good.” And I continued, my eyes closed, too, for I know this book by heart: “We must not chale and fret at that which happens.” I put my left hand on the book; I leaned on Hildegard for a moment and she leaned on me, and I was breathing the book through my hand and through the young woman both.
#59/100 Days 2011. Photo: Albrecht Dürer, Self Portrait with a Pillow (1493). The quotes in the text are from book XI of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (167 AD). Published in Blue Fifth Review as “Book Breath”.

July 16th 2011

7 notes |#

I observed our gardeners today. I’m impressed how different they are: Theodosius is methodical. He never seems to make a superfluous movement yet he’s always on the go. When he doesn’t pull out a weed or cut a twig, he sharpens a tool or ties branches together. In between he even finds time to shout orders at other, lower gardeners. Then there’s that other gardener, Beowulf. He’s Theodosius’ equal. But even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t take instruction willingly. Beowulf, faithful to his name, which is not his fault, unless we receive our names from God without knowing it, carries himself like a warrior: when he holds an axe, I expect him to throw it and hurl himself at a rose bush screaming. As a groundsman, Beowulf looks hopeless; he’ll play with any tool you give him. He stands around looking at this and that for long times and he doesn’t respond when you talk to him. When he finally gets to work, he sings loudly and works fast, but he has to, because he never likes to stay with the same task for long. Worst of all, he drives Theodosius mad, and I believe that he’s also bothered by Theodosius’ ways. But our large garden seems to thrive on their different tempers. Between Theo’s methods and Beo’s messiness, there’s the right word and the right hand at any time. They’re like twins, like the two sides of everything, an important message from nature itself for which I’m grateful.

#57/100 Days 2011. Illustration: Woodcut of peasants working in the herb garden.

Posted at 7:38pm and tagged with: 57, 100days2011, Gisela, garden, Theodosius, Beowulf,.

I observed our gardeners today. I’m impressed how different they are: Theodosius is methodical. He never seems to make a superfluous movement yet he’s always on the go. When he doesn’t pull out a weed or cut a twig, he sharpens a tool or ties branches together. In between he even finds time to shout orders at other, lower gardeners. Then there’s that other gardener, Beowulf. He’s Theodosius’ equal. But even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t take instruction willingly. Beowulf, faithful to his name, which is not his fault, unless we receive our names from God without knowing it, carries himself like a warrior: when he holds an axe, I expect him to throw it and hurl himself at a rose bush screaming. As a groundsman, Beowulf looks hopeless; he’ll play with any tool you give him. He stands around looking at this and that for long times and he doesn’t respond when you talk to him. When he finally gets to work, he sings loudly and works fast, but he has to, because he never likes to stay with the same task for long. Worst of all, he drives Theodosius mad, and I believe that he’s also bothered by Theodosius’ ways. But our large garden seems to thrive on their different tempers. Between Theo’s methods and Beo’s messiness, there’s the right word and the right hand at any time. They’re like twins, like the two sides of everything, an important message from nature itself for which I’m grateful.
#57/100 Days 2011. Illustration: Woodcut of peasants working in the herb garden.

July 12th 2011

6 notes |#

Everybody wants to live in a town now. It didn’t used to be this way, I think. Once everybody lived on the land. Then someone built a fence around his and his friends’ houses and locked the gate at night against wild animals, demons and strangers. Later, the fence turned into a wall. Uncle Thomas once told me about his first night behind city walls, when he was still a young boy. He said he felt caged. In town, you could only hear neighbors groan and married couples fart in unison. He said: “when you sleep outside the walls you can hear dragon wings flap in the wind. It’s true,” he said. Uncle Thomas lives in the forest now. He builds furniture that is bought by town folk. “City dwellers will think you’re thick if you’re not from there,” he said. “They even bury their dead within their walls, so that the soul can’t escape into the wild even after death. Isn’t that crazy?” I nodded. I want to be buried under an elm tree on a hill so that I can look out across a bit of land and see some city, too, because perhaps one day everyone will live behind walls. One must think of these things while there’s time, while there still are dragons in the air.

#53/100 Days 2011. Drawing by Taffimai: ”City — Party Time”.

Posted at 11:12pm and tagged with: 100days2011, 53, city, drawing, gisela, lucia, thomas, Taffimai,.

Everybody wants to live in a town now. It didn’t used to be this way, I think. Once everybody lived on the land. Then someone built a fence around his and his friends’ houses and locked the gate at night against wild animals, demons and strangers. Later, the fence turned into a wall. Uncle Thomas once told me about his first night behind city walls, when he was still a young boy. He said he felt caged. In town, you could only hear neighbors groan and married couples fart in unison. He said: “when you sleep outside the walls you can hear dragon wings flap in the wind. It’s true,” he said. Uncle Thomas lives in the forest now. He builds furniture that is bought by town folk. “City dwellers will think you’re thick if you’re not from there,” he said. “They even bury their dead within their walls, so that the soul can’t escape into the wild even after death. Isn’t that crazy?” I nodded. I want to be buried under an elm tree on a hill so that I can look out across a bit of land and see some city, too, because perhaps one day everyone will live behind walls. One must think of these things while there’s time, while there still are dragons in the air.
#53/100 Days 2011. Drawing by Taffimai: ”City — Party Time”.

June 12th 2011

16 notes |#

Gisela felt terrified by fairy tales about other princesses. None of her girlfriends at the convent shared this torment. She was the only true princess among them. The tales were much easier on the average high born and on the commoner. They were hard on witches and wicked stepmothers. She prayed that God would not turn her into a wicked stepmother. She wouldn’t mind some of the magical powers of witches though. A charm to get out of work. A charm to hide a pimple or make it appear as a birth mark. She blushed, not because of the heresy of her thoughts but because she felt how meagre and limited her fantasies were: get out of work? Hide a pimple? As a witch, she could do better than that: make her grumpy father a happy man. Answer mother’s prayers. Turn the whole convent into a fun fair. Bring the heathens to their knees so that they took the body of the Lord in their foul mouths and drank His instead of their enemies’ blood. Laugh into the face of an evil witch who gave you a poisoned apple. Swim at the bottom of a lake and shake hands with the wild green man who lived there. – The abbess was wicked and wise at once. Everyone knew she slept with the choirmaster: this happened every day after Nocturns when nuns and novices made ready for bed and were dozy from lack of sleep and the day’s hard work. Gisela knew because her cell lay at the end of the corridor leading to the abbess’ quarters and because, at some point of their lovemaking, the abbess and the choirmaster would chant together in high tones. Muffled, supposedly, by the heavy bedspread given to the abbey by her own father showing himself and her mother surrounded by naked angels with trumpets. Perhaps the bedspread itself was charmed and made them do whatever they did? It surely was good for them and for the whole convent: when the choirmaster was away, the abbess’ face turned gray and she seemed suddenly aged. She was moody then and unfair, a wicked stepmother. Whatever the singing sorcerer gave her was a powerful potion.

#23/100 Days 2011. Photo: drawing by Taffimai: “The Delicacy Of Hands.”

Posted at 12:51pm and tagged with: abbess, convent, fairy tale, gisela, love, potion, sex, stepmother, witch, Taffimai,.

Gisela felt terrified by fairy tales about other princesses. None of her girlfriends at the convent shared this torment. She was the only true princess among them. The tales were much easier on the average high born and on the commoner. They were hard on witches and wicked stepmothers. She prayed that God would not turn her into a wicked stepmother. She wouldn’t mind some of the magical powers of witches though. A charm to get out of work. A charm to hide a pimple or make it appear as a birth mark. She blushed, not because of the heresy of her thoughts but because she felt how meagre and limited her fantasies were: get out of work? Hide a pimple? As a witch, she could do better than that: make her grumpy father a happy man. Answer mother’s prayers. Turn the whole convent into a fun fair. Bring the heathens to their knees so that they took the body of the Lord in their foul mouths and drank His instead of their enemies’ blood. Laugh into the face of an evil witch who gave you a poisoned apple. Swim at the bottom of a lake and shake hands with the wild green man who lived there. – The abbess was wicked and wise at once. Everyone knew she slept with the choirmaster: this happened every day after Nocturns when nuns and novices made ready for bed and were dozy from lack of sleep and the day’s hard work. Gisela knew because her cell lay at the end of the corridor leading to the abbess’ quarters and because, at some point of their lovemaking, the abbess and the choirmaster would chant together in high tones. Muffled, supposedly, by the heavy bedspread given to the abbey by her own father showing himself and her mother surrounded by naked angels with trumpets. Perhaps the bedspread itself was charmed and made them do whatever they did? It surely was good for them and for the whole convent: when the choirmaster was away, the abbess’ face turned gray and she seemed suddenly aged. She was moody then and unfair, a wicked stepmother. Whatever the singing sorcerer gave her was a powerful potion.
#23/100 Days 2011. Photo: drawing by Taffimai: “The Delicacy Of Hands.”