These are excerpts from the Gnosis poem 'The Thunder, Perfect Mind' from the Nag Hammadi Library, one of my all time favourites. The whole text and more about the Nag Hammadi Library (one of the most amazing finds in recent times) can be accessed here.

I was sent forth from the power,
and I have come to those who reflect upon me,
and I have been found among those who seek after me.
Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,
and you hearers, hear me.
You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.
And do not banish me from your sight.
And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.
Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!
Do not be ignorant of me.

For I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am the mother and the daughter.
I am the members of my mother.
I am the barren one
and many are her sons.
I am she whose wedding is great,
and I have not taken a husband.
I am the midwife and she who does not bear.
I am the solace of my labor pains.
I am the bride and the bridegroom,
and it is my husband who begot me.
I am the mother of my father
and the sister of my husband
and he is my offspring.
I am the slave of him who prepared me.
I am the ruler of my offspring.
But he is the one who begot me before the time on a birthday.
And he is my offspring in due time,
and my power is from him.
I am the staff of his power in his youth,
and he is the rod of my old age.
And whatever he wills happens to me.
I am the silence that is incomprehensible
and the idea whose remembrance is frequent.
I am the voice whose sound is manifold
and the word whose appearance is multiple.
I am the utterance of my name.

For I am knowledge and ignorance.
I am shame and boldness.
I am shameless; I am ashamed.
I am strength and I am fear.
I am war and peace.
Give heed to me.
I am the one who is disgraced and the great one.

Give heed to my poverty and my wealth.
Do not be arrogant to me when I am cast out upon the earth,
and you will find me in those that are to come.
And do not look upon me on the dung-heap
nor go and leave me cast out,
and you will find me in the kingdoms.
And do not look upon me when I am cast out among those who
are disgraced and in the least places,
nor laugh at me.
And do not cast me out among those who are slain in violence.
But I, I am compassionate and I am cruel.

I am peace,
and war has come because of me.
And I am an alien and a citizen.
I am the substance and the one who has no substance.

Those who are without association with me are ignorant of me,
and those who are in my substance are the ones who know me.
Those who are close to me have been ignorant of me,
and those who are far away from me are the ones who have known me.
On the day when I am close to you, you are far away from me,
and on the day when I am far away from you, I am close to you.

Hear me, you hearers
and learn of my words, you who know me.
I am the hearing that is attainable to everything;
I am the speech that cannot be grasped.
I am the name of the sound
and the sound of the name.
I am the sign of the letter
and the designation of the division.

For many are the pleasant forms which exist in numerous sins,
and incontinencies,
and disgraceful passions,
and fleeting pleasures,
which men embrace until they become sober
and go up to their resting place.
And they will find me there,
and they will live,

and they will not die again.

For the love of Monkton.

That'll be all.

If I told you, you wouldn't believe it.

I'm so tired of talking about death.

Lord, give me strength.

He said give me a kiss.

It's about time I felt sentimental.

What a year. I can't say that I haven't grown. And yet, how far have I come? All the objectives I came with were not the ones I ended up with but what I did get was something I never thought I would. From what once was a prison, I will now look upon fondly as I sit in the summer and think about what really has gone on so far. Pollock Halls, a wisp of air. My life here is a myriad of chaos and promise. What's to become of it all?

I'm starting to feel heartache. It's all becoming real. I put my belongings that hung so easily around this room into their cardboard confines. I'll be back for you. But as much as I feel longing for a recent past, I also feel thrown into a future that's just as foggy. All these months of absence. I return, and who will I be then? Four months. People and places move on.

My heart aches.

I'll miss tango.

An Ode to the Moleskine.

This little black book has been my companion for over half a year now, and although these words are not my own, they are every bit my sentiment:

Moleskine
It is a notebook with a black cover that I take everywhere.
Into it I pour my doubts, my astonishments, and my
everyday moments of irritation. On its pages I jot down
articles, chapters of novels, short stories, recipes, things I
intend to do, and reminders of obligations that tend to slip
my mind. My relationship with Moleskine is deeply
emotional, and when a like minded reader, woman or
man—that is why I write, to reach out to the like-
minded—gives me one, unmarked, still encased in
cellophane, I am deeply grateful. But the day always
comes when there are no more blank pages, and I reread
my writing, in a brief ceremony of farewell, before turning
to a new Moleskine. As I read these pages, I find that I
am still able to astonish myself. It is like respooling a film
of my life, and watching it slip by, frame by fleeting frame.
How different the articles seem, before being edited to fit;
how naïve the additions to this chapter or that, with
marginal notes like “impossible to use” or “could this be
useful?” The texts that appear here come from the three
Moleskines I filled up between January 2002 and March
2004. Since then, as Vincent Van Gogh once wrote to his
brother Théo, “the windmills are gone, but the wind is
unchanged.”

- Luis Sepúlveda
Moleskine
Apuntes y reflexiones
Ediciones B
Grupo Zeta, 2004

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day

Nothing gold can stay.

- Robert Frost

I've never been more afraid and more excited to go into the water.