Wandering
Hesse. (1920; 1972 in English). James Wright (Trans). NY: Farrar Straus & Giroux
This book I wish to possess, saturated with lovely loneliness and simple yet sharp meditation, is composed of Hesse's watercolor paintings, proses and poems. (On the left, Gogh's oil painting, The Old Tower in the Field)
He appreciates the joy of life allotted to him.
The dream of death is only the dark smoke
Under which the fires of life are burning.
He looks for motherhood as he seeks God.
Heart, how torn you are,
How blessed to plow down blindly,
To think nothing, to know nothing,
Only to breathe, only to feel.
He learns from trees,
Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life it not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God Speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
and accepts bitter days of his as a payment for loved and lovely days that will come or already vanished.
The spirit reigns, healing all sickness,
Green sings out from newborn springs,
The world will share in freshness and meaning,
And hearts grow glad and light.
He still loves life, as if it were an unattainable object.
Say yes to everything, shirk nothing, don't try to lie to yourself. You are not a solid citizen, you are not a Greek, you are not harmonious, or the master of yourself, you are a bird in the storm. Let it storm!
He yearns for defining glorious beauty clouded by sadness.
Will rustle the lovely loneliness of trees.
And, even there, no one will know me.
I am sure he struggles to deal with his depression.
From time to time there rises in my soul, without external cause, the dark wave. A shadow runs over the world, like the shadow of a cloud. Joy sounds false, and music stale. Depression pervades everything, dying is better than living... But anger, impatience, complaints. and hatred have no effect on tings, and are deflected from everything, back to myself. I am the one who deserves hatred. I am the one who brings discord and hatred into the world...There are good remedies against depression: song, piety, the drinking of wine, making music, writing poems. wandering...I have overcome it again. And I will have to overcome it once more, perhaps many times.
Living a hermit life in a mountain, he wanders around and tastes homesickness and his longing for travel, which has the same destiny in his life. Yet, he detests a compromise and prefers suffering from the two idiosyncratic calls.
Like the day between morning and evening, my life falls between my urge to travel and my homesickness...To be satisfied was the very thing I could not bear. Poetry became suspect to me. The house became narrow to me. No goal that I reached was a goal, every path was a detour, every rest gave birth to new longing...There, where contradictions die, is Nirvana. Within me. they still burn brightly, beloved stars of longing.
This book I wish to possess, saturated with lovely loneliness and simple yet sharp meditation, is composed of Hesse's watercolor paintings, proses and poems. (On the left, Gogh's oil painting, The Old Tower in the Field)He appreciates the joy of life allotted to him.
The dream of death is only the dark smoke
Under which the fires of life are burning.
He looks for motherhood as he seeks God.
Heart, how torn you are,
How blessed to plow down blindly,
To think nothing, to know nothing,
Only to breathe, only to feel.
He learns from trees,
Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life it not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God Speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
and accepts bitter days of his as a payment for loved and lovely days that will come or already vanished.
The spirit reigns, healing all sickness,
Green sings out from newborn springs,
The world will share in freshness and meaning,
And hearts grow glad and light.
He still loves life, as if it were an unattainable object.
Say yes to everything, shirk nothing, don't try to lie to yourself. You are not a solid citizen, you are not a Greek, you are not harmonious, or the master of yourself, you are a bird in the storm. Let it storm!
He yearns for defining glorious beauty clouded by sadness.
Will rustle the lovely loneliness of trees.
And, even there, no one will know me.
I am sure he struggles to deal with his depression.
From time to time there rises in my soul, without external cause, the dark wave. A shadow runs over the world, like the shadow of a cloud. Joy sounds false, and music stale. Depression pervades everything, dying is better than living... But anger, impatience, complaints. and hatred have no effect on tings, and are deflected from everything, back to myself. I am the one who deserves hatred. I am the one who brings discord and hatred into the world...There are good remedies against depression: song, piety, the drinking of wine, making music, writing poems. wandering...I have overcome it again. And I will have to overcome it once more, perhaps many times.
Living a hermit life in a mountain, he wanders around and tastes homesickness and his longing for travel, which has the same destiny in his life. Yet, he detests a compromise and prefers suffering from the two idiosyncratic calls.
Like the day between morning and evening, my life falls between my urge to travel and my homesickness...To be satisfied was the very thing I could not bear. Poetry became suspect to me. The house became narrow to me. No goal that I reached was a goal, every path was a detour, every rest gave birth to new longing...There, where contradictions die, is Nirvana. Within me. they still burn brightly, beloved stars of longing.
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