No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.
Plato

When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you confortable. It is designed to make its own people confortable.
Clifton Fadiman

The Prince and The Magician

Once upon a time there was a young prince who believed in all things but three.
He did not believe in princesses, he did not believe in islands, and he did not believe in God.
His father, the king, told him that such things did not exist. As there were no princesses or islands in his father's domains, and no sign of God, the prince believed his father.
But then, one day, the prince ran away from his palace and came to the next land.
There, to his astonishment, from every coast he saw islands, and on these islands, strange and troubling creatures whom he dared not name. As he was searching for a boat, a man in full evening dress approached him along the shore.
"Are those real islands?" asked the young prince.
"Of course they are real islands," said the man in evening dress."
And those strange and troubling creatures?"
"They are all genuine and authentic princesses."
"Then God must also exist!" cried the young prince.
"I am God," replied the man in evening dress, with a bow.
The young prince returned home as quickly as he could.
"So, you are back," said his father, the king."
I have seen islands, I have seen princesses, I have seen God," said the prince reproachfully.
The king was unmoved."Neither real islands, real princesses nor a real God exist."
"I saw them!"
"Tell me how God was dressed."
"God was in full evening dress."
"Were the sleves of his coat rolled back?"
The prince remembered that they had been.
The king smiled."That is the uniform of a magician. You have been deceived."
At this, the prince returned to the next land and went to the same shore, where once again he came upon the man in full evening dress.
"My father, the king, has told me who you are," said the prince indignantly.
"You deceived me last time, but not again. Now I know that those are not real islands and real princesses, because you are a magician."
The man on the shore smiled.
"It is you who are deceived, my boy. In your father's kingdom, there are many islands and many princesses. But you are under your father's spell, so you cannot see them."
The prince pensively returned home. When he saw his father, he looked him in the eye.
"Father, is it true that you are not a real king, but only a magician?"
The king smiled and rolled back his sleeves.
"Yes, my son, I'm only a magician."
"Then the man on the other shore was God."
"The man on the other shore was another magician."
"I must know the truth, the truth beyond magic."
"There is no truth beyond magic," said the king.
The prince was full of sadness. He said "I will kill myself."
The king by magic caused Death to appear. Death stood in the door and beckoned to the prince. The prince shuddered. He remembered the beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful princesses.
"Very well," he said, "I can bear it".
"You see, my son," said the king, "you, too, now begin to be a magician."
From "The Magus" by John Fowles.

Fatima

You are all waiting for a Divine Intervention
But you don’t know the time is now running against you.
You get lost in the middle of so much fear of
Not being able to buy without selling yourself;

And you love your delusional schemes,
Keep pretending the world was made by no one;

It just happens that everything has a beginning,
And if it began, one day it will end;
I feel sorry for yourselves!

And the nuclear weapons attacks threats,
Neutron bombs weren’t made by god;
Somebody, somebody one day will take revenge…
You are worms you think you are kings!

I don’t want to be like yourselves!
I no longer need!
I already know what I have to know,
And now… whatever!

Three children lacking money and morals…
They didn’t hear the gentle voice which was a tear drop,
And they forgot to tell everyone it might have had a name,
And the name was Fatima!
And suddenly the wine turned into water,
And the wound didn’t heal,
The stainless got dirty and,
On the third day nobody was brought back to life.

Fê Lemos and Renato Russo
Free translation by Shell

You, O eternal Trinity, are a deep sea, into which the more I enter the more I find, and the more I find the more I seek. The soul cannot be satiated in your abyss, for she continually hungers after you, the eternal Trinity, desiring to see you with the light of your light. As the hart desires the springs of living water, so my soul desires to leave the prison of this dark body and see you in truth.
Feast of Catherine of Siena, Mystic, Teacher, 1380

Oh Italy!
Iwish Iwish - A believer I wish I was.

About a dream...

I wish you well and so I take my leave, I pray you know me when we meet again.
William Shakespeare