Bibliosmia

[thinkingreadingtree]

Reading at Trongsa, Bhutan

“Sometimes journeys begin long before their first step is taken”

“To ask of a journey, Why? is to hear only my own silence”

“I am travelling with this mystique myself”

To a mountain in Tibet – Colin Thubron

[thinkingreadingtree]

Reading at Bodhgaya train station, India

[thinkingreadingtree]

Tale of a starry night

- Alphonse Daudet-

Once a long, melancholy cry broke out from the mere that glimmered far below, and was borne up the hill to us, swelling and sinking. At the same moment a lovely shooting star glided over our heads in the same direction, as if the cry we had just heard carried the light along with it. 

“What is that?” Stéphanette whispered. 

“That, mistress, is a soul entering Paradise”; and I made the sign of the cross. She, too, crossed herself, and remained a moment gazing upward, very thoughtfully. Then she said, “It is true, then, shepherd, that you people are sorcerers?” 

“By no means, little lady. Only here we live nearer the stars, and know what is happening up yonder better than the folk in the plain.” 

She was still staring upward, her chin rested on her hand, wrapped in her woolly skin like a small shepherdess straight from heaven.

“What numbers! And how lovely it is ! Never have I seen so many. Do you know their names, shepherd?” 

“Why, yes, mistress. Look straight above our heads. That is St. James’s Road.  It runs from France straight over Spain. It was St. James of Galicia who traced it there to show the brave Charlemagne his way when he was making war upon the Saracens. Further on you have the Chariot of Souls, with its four flashing wheels. The three stars which go before it are the Team; and that quite little one, close to the third, is the Charioteer. Do you see that shower of stars falling all around? Those are the souls which the good God will not accept, to dwell with Him. . . . A little lower — that is the Rake or the Three Kings.  It’s those we people tell the clock by. Only by glancing at them I know, this minute, that midnight is past. A little lower, still towards the south, blazes John of Milan, the torch of the stars. Listen to what the shepherds tell about that star. It seems that, one night, John of Milan, with the Three Kings and La Poucinière,  being most hurried, set out first, they say, and took the upper road. Look at her up there, deep in the heaven. The Three Kings took a short cut, lower down, and caught her up; but that lazybones, John of Milan, who had overslept himself, was left behind, and, in a fury, hurled his walking-stick after them, to stop them. This is why the Three Kings are likewise called John of Milan’s Walkingstick. . . . But the loveliest of all the stars, mistress, is our own, the Shepherd’s Star, which gives us light as we lead forth our flocks in the dawn, and in the evening also when we bring them to the fold Again. We call her Maguelonne too, lovely Maguelonne, who runs after Pierre of Provence and is his bride every seven years.” 

 “What, shepherd? Are there, then, marriages among the stars?” 

“Why, of course, mistress . . . ” 

And while I was trying to explain to her what these marriages were, I felt something light and delicate drop softly on my shoulder. It was her head, drooping with slumber, that rested against me, with a delicious rustling of ribbons, of lace, and of waving curls. She remained thus, nor stirred till the stars paled in heaven, their light made faint by the climbing day. As for me, I sat and watched her sleep; a little troubled, deep down in my soul, but kept holy by the clear night which has never given me other than beautiful thoughts. Around us the stars continued their silent march, obedient as a mighty army; and once or twice I fancied that one of these stars, the most delicate, the most lustrous, had missed her way and had come to lean upon my shoulder, and to sleep

[thinkingreadingtree]

Let me tell you about winds

"There is a whirlwind in southern Morocco, the aajej, against which the fellahin defend themselves with knives. There is the africo, which has at times reached into the city of Rome. The alm, a fall wind out of Yugoslavia. The arifi, also christened aref or rifi, which scorches with numerous tongues. These are permanent winds that live in the present tense. There are other, less constant winds that change direction, that can knock down horse and rider and realign themselves anticlockwise. The bist roz leaps into Afghanistan for 170 days--burying villages. There is the hot, dry ghibli from Tunis, which rolls and rolls and produces a nervous condition. The haboob--a Sudan dust storm that dresses in bright yellow walls a thousand metres high and is followed by rain. The harmattan, which blows and eventually drowns itself into the Atlantic. Imbat, a sea breeze in North Africa. Some winds that just sigh towards the sky. Night dust storms that come with the cold. The khamsin, a dust in Egypt from March to May, named after the Arabic word for 'fifty,' blooming for fifty days--the ninth plague of Egypt. The datoo out of Gibraltar, which carries fragrance. There is also the ------, the secret wind of the desert, whose name was erased by a king after his son died within it. And the nafhat--a blast out of Arabia. The mezzar-ifoullousen--a violent and cold southwesterly known to Berbers as 'that which plucks the fowls.' The beshabar, a black and dry northeasterly out of the Caucasus, 'black wind.' The Samiel from Turkey, 'poison and wind,' used often in battle. As well as the other 'poison winds,' the simoom, of North Africa, and the solano, whose dust plucks off rare petals, causing giddiness. Other, private winds. Travelling along the ground like a flood. Blasting off paint, throwing down telephone poles, transporting stones and statue heads. The harmattan blows across the Sahara filled with red dust, dust as fire, as flour, entering and coagulating in the locks of rifles. Mariners called this red wind the 'sea of darkness.' Red sand fogs out of the Sahara were deposited as far north as Cornwall and Devon, producing showers of mud so great this was also mistaken for blood. 'Blood rains were widely reported in Portugal and Spain in 1901.' There are always millions of tons of dust in the air, just as there are millions of cubes of air in the earth and more living flesh in the soil (worms, beetles, underground creatures) than there is grazing and existing on it. Herodotus records the death of various armies engulfed in the simoom who were never seen again. One nation was 'so enraged by this evil wind that they declared war on it and marched out in full battle array, only to be rapidly and completely interred."