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kiyodu · 3 years

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The Letters of Vincent van Gogh (Part I)

Quotes I Enjoy:

• Admire as much as you can, most people don't admire enough.

• That does not mean there are no old women, only that a woman does not grow old as long as she loves and is loved.

• Seek only light and freedom and do not immerse yourself too deeply in the worldly mire.

• Sorrow is better than joy -- and even in mirth the heart is sad -- and it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasts, for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.

• Our life is a pilgrim's progress. I once saw a very beautiful picture, it was a landscape at evening. In the distance on the right hand side a row of hills appearing blue in the evening mist. Above those hills the splendor of the sunset, the grey clouds with their linings of silver and gold and purple. The landscape is a plain or heath covered with grass and heather, here and there the white stem of a birch tree and its yellow leaves, for it was in Autumn.

Through the landscape a road leads to a high mountain, far far away. On the top of that mountain a city whereon the setting sun casts a glory. On the road walks a pilgrim, staff in hand. He has been walking for a good long while already and he is very tired. And now he meets a woman, a figure in black that makes one think of St. Paul's word: 'As being sorrowful yet always rejoicing.' That Angel of God has been placed there to encourage the pilgrims and to answer their questions.

And the pilgrim asks her: "Does the road go up hill then all the way?"

And the answer is: "Yes to the very end." And he asks again: "And will the journey take all day long?" And the answer is: "From morn till night my friend."

And the pilgrim goes on sorrowful yet always rejoicing, sorrowful because it is so far off and the road so long. Hopeful as he looks up to the eternal city far away, resplendent in the evening glow and he thinks of two old sayings, he has heard long ago, the one is:

There must much strife be striven

There must much suffering be suffered

There must much prayer be prayed

And then the end will be peace.

and the other:

The water comes up to the lips

But higher comes it not.

• Our life we might compare it to a journey, we go from the place where we were born to a far off haven. Our earlier life might be compared to sailing on a river, but very soon the waves become higher, the wind more violent, we are at sea almost before we are aware of it -- and the prayer from the heart ariseth to God: Protect me o God, for my bark is so small and Thy sea is so great. The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too.

The heart that seeks for God and for a Godly life has more storms than any other.

• It is dear to you, too, that 'sorrowful, yet always rejoicing', keep it in mind, for it is a good text and a good cloak to wear in the storm of life, keep it in mind at this time now that have been going through so much. And be careful, for though what you have been through is no small thing, yet as far as I can see there is something still greater ahead.

• One of these days I shall make a start with Streckfuss's Algemene Geshiedenis (General History), or rather I have started it already. It isn't easy, but I certainly hope that taking it one step at a time and doing the best one can will pay off. But it will take time - many testify to that, and not just Corot alone: "It took only forty years' work, thought and attention."

• I have been thinking about what we were discussing, and the saying sprang to mind: 'We are today what we were yesterday.' That does not mean one must stand still and may not try to improve oneself; on the contrary, it is a compelling reason for doing so and for being glad to do so. But to be true to the saying, one must not backslide, and once one has started to look at things freely and openly one must not face about or stray.

• There once was a man who went to church and asked, 'Can it be that my ardour has decieved me, that I have taken a wrong turning and managed things badly? If only I could be rid of this doubt and know for certain I shall come out victorious and succeed in the end.'

And then a voice answered him, 'And if you were certain, what would you do then? Act now as if you were certain and you will not be disappointed.' Then the man went on his way, not unbelieving but believing, and returned to his work no longer doubting or wavering.

• We have talked a good deal about our duty and how we may attain the right goal, and we have properly concluded that our first objective must be to find a specific position and a profession to which we can wholly devote ourselves. And I believe that we also agreed on this point, viz (in other words). that one must pay particular attention to the end, and that a victory gained after a whole life of work and effort is better than one gained with greater dispatch.

• Anyone who leads an upright life and experiences real difficulty and disappointment and yet is not crushed by them is worth more than one for whom everything has always been plain sailing and who has known nothing but relative prosperity.

• Let us but go forth quietly, testing everything and holding fast to what is good, and trying all the time to learn more of what is useful and adds to our experience. Weemoed (melancholy) may be a good experience, provided we write it as two words: wee (woe), which is in every man, each of us having reason enough, but it must be allied to moed (courage), and the more the better, for it is good to be someone who never despairs.

• If only we try to live righteously, we shall fare well, even though we are bound to encounter genuine sadness and real disappointments and shall probably commit real mistakes and do things that are wrong, but it is certainly better to be ardent in spirit, even though one makes more mistakes, than narrow-minded and over-cautious.

• It is good to love as many things as one can, for therein lies true strength, and those who much, do much and accomplish much, and whatever is done with love is done well.

• Better to say but a few words, but filled with meaning, than to speak many that are but idle sounds and as easy to utter as they are useless.

• Love is the best and the noblest thing in the human heart, especially when it is tested by life as gold is tested by fire. Happy is he who has loved much, and is sure of himself, and although he may have wavered and doubted, he has kept that divine spark alive and returned to what was in the beginning and ever shall be.

If only one keeps loving faithfully what is truly worth loving and does not squander one's love on trivial and insignificant and meaningless things then one will gradually obtain more light and grow stronger.

• The sooner one tries to become accomplished in a certain position in life and a certain field and adopts a relatively independent way of thinking and acting, and the more one keeps to set rules, the stronger in character one will grow, and that does not mean becoming narrow-minded.

It is a wise thing to do this, because life is short and time passes quickly. If one is accomplished in one single thing, understanding one single thing well, then one has insight into and knowledge of many other things into the bargain.

• It's as well to go out into the world from time to time and mix with other people (and sometimes one feels, in fact, obliged and called upon to do so) - or it may simply be one way 'Of throwing oneself into work unreservedly and with all one's strength' - but one who prefers to be quietly alone with his work and seems to need very few friends will go safest in the world and among people.

• One should never feel secure just because one has no difficulties or cares or handicaps, and one should never be too easy-going. Even in the politest circles and the bet surroundings and circumstances one should retain something of the original character of a Robinson Crusoe or of a primitive man, for otherwise one cannot be rooted in oneself, and one must never let the fire in one's soul die, for the time will inevitably come when it will be needed.

• He who chooses poverty for himself and loves it possesses a great treasure and will hear the voice of his conscience address him ever more clearly. He who hears that voice, which is God's greatest gift, in his innermost being and follows it, finds in it a friend at last, and he is never alone!

• It is good to go on believing that everything is more miraculous than one can ever begin to understand, for that is the truth; it is good to remain sensitive and humble and tender-hearted even though one may have to hide one's feelings, as is often necessary. It is good to be well versed in the things that are hidden from the wise and the learned of this world, but that are revealed as if by nature to the poor and the simple, to women and little children.

For what can one learn which is better than that which God has given by nature to every human soul and which goes on living and loving, hoping and believing, in the depth of every soul, unless we wantonly destroy it.

• The need is for nothing less than the infinite and the miraculous, and a man does well to be satisfied with nothing less, and not to feel easy until he has gained it.

That is what all great men have acknowledged in their works, all those who have thought a little more deeply and searched and worked and loved a little more than the rest, who have plumbed the depths of the sea of life. Plumb the depths, that is what we too must do if we want to make a catch, and if we sometimes have to work the whole night through without catch.

• So let us go forward quietly, each on his own path, forever making for the light, 'life up your hearts', and in the knowledge that we are as others are and that others are as we are and that it is right to love one another in the best possible way, believing all things, hoping for all things and enduring all things, and never falling. And not being too troubled by our weaknesses, for even he who has none, has one weakness, namely that he none, and anyone who believes himself to be consummately wise would do well to be foolish all over again.

#the letters of vincent van gogh

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enigpa · 7 years

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"Travellers there is no path...Paths are made by walking" Antonio Machado Hi Folks I hope this finds you all well and safe after the big storms. I am in Spain, in a town called Lugo in Galicia, having a day off after 14 days walking. Lugo is the only city in the world to be completely surrounded by intact Roman walls. It was thought to have been founded by Celts way back when, and dedicated to Lug, the Sun God, and a member of the Tuatha de Danann. Ireland has a sun god? Well Lug has certainly be waching over me during my travels. For the most part, I have been walking in glorious sunshine. I began my journey in Santander in Cantabria. The first impression I had was the incredible verdant, landsape, not what you think of when you think of Spain. Everywhere was so lush and vibrant, even more so than back home in Ireland. That lushness has gradually lessened along my path from Cantabria into Asturias and now here in Galicia, where there is the parched look to the fields and roadsides, that one would expect. Sadly, that dryness, (along with other factors) has lead to many forest fires recently, some of which are along the Camino de Santiago. I will have to see as I go deeper into Galicia how that affects me. My aim is to walk to Porto in Portugal, stopping on the way to visit friends in Pontevedra. I am not on a pilgrimage. Today, El Camino de Santiago is a Christian pilgrimage, but Christianity didn't invent the route. In fact, like many of Christianity's holidays and rituals, the Church usurped and repackaged ancient pagan traditions.Long before Jesus was born, pagans were walking across northern Spain in a born-again ritual. They would finish at Fisterra (the end of the world), burn their clothes, and watch the sun fall into the infinite sea next to La Costa de Morta(the Coast of Death). This ritual symbolized a pilgrim's death and rebirth.Eventually, Christians claimed to have brought the remains of St. James to Santiago de Compostela. They encouraged Christians to follow the well-beaten pilgrimage path that the pagans had created, but this time in the name of Christianity. Nowadays it seems to have become a cheap and easy way for middle class white people to "find themselves" Every year around 300,000 people earn a compostela In one day in August 2009, more than 1,500 people arrived in Santiago for their paper. My son says I am off ´Soul-searching´, but that is not really true either. Although I´m sure I will learn something about my incorporeal essence along the way. "Your soul knows the geography of your destiny and the map of your future. Trust this side of yourself. It will take you where you need to go but it will also teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey" ― John O'Donohue The main reason for coming is simply to have some time on my own, and reflect a little on where I am in my life, and how I want to live the next part. My job is certainly not good for my health. I´m just too old and decrepid to be crawling around on my knees picking kilos of spinach and salad leaves. I (mainly) love doing the market, but it is exhausting, and I would love to have weekends off. So where to next? At the moment, my idea would be to put the business up for sale, and see what comes towards me. I do not expect a great rush of prospective buyers, but there is no urgency. I think my knees will hold out a little longer. Finding time for myself has been relatively easy. I spend most of every day walking alone, passing other travellers occasionally and having brief conversations. Most people walking the Camino are Spanish, with many French and then a scattering of other nationalities. The Spanish and French for the most part do not have much English, and my terrible French and non-existent Spanish mean longer conversations are anyway not possible. However, whilst you can learn a lot about yourself being alone, it is true that every meeting with someone, is a meeting with yourself. There have been a few english speakers with whom I have had some interesting exchanges. Paul, a tall 73 year old Canadian who fell in love with a South Korean woman 4 years ago on the Camino, and has been searching for her ever since...incuding a trip to Korea. He was close to tears as we talked about it. For each of us, I believe, there are a few people who we meet along our path, with whom we have such a truly powerful connection, and those connections should be treasured, and celebrated even if for whatever reasons, they are physically short lived. In Celtic Spiritual tradition, it is believed that the soul radiates all about the physical body, what some refer to as an aura. When you connect with another person and become completely open and trusting with that individual, your two souls begin to flow together. Should such a deep bond be formed, it is said you have found your Anam Cara or soul friend. Your Anam Cara always accepts you as you truly are, holding you in beauty and light. In order to appreciate this relationship, you must first recognize your own inner light and beauty. This is not always easy to do. The Celts believed that forming an Anam Cara friendship would help you to awaken your awareness of your own nature and experience the joys of others. Then, there was a Belgian, Kuhn, who had planned to walk the Camino with his wife, but she had sadly died 6 months ago. So he decided to do the walk anyway, and think about his future. Barbel, a Finnish woman who had lived a long time in a commune, and wanted to move on to something new....but what? Rint from The Netherlands, who has had a difficult relationship with his son for 20 years or more, and then his son out of the blue asked if he could join him on the Camino.... more tears. The only Irish person I met so far, was a young man, Ed, from West Limerick, who was struggling with some difficulties. He had the shakes, and was barely comprehensible. Possibly just exhausted. That was the night I cooked in the Aubergue. He ate it as though he hadn´t eaten a good meal in a long time. Of course we are all looking for something, and that is what keeps us going. "Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much...." Ralph Waldo Emerson As well as people, I have met various beasts along the way. One morning I came around the bend and their was a group of small black wild pigs on the path, who just ambled off not too bothered about me. And one particularly warm afternoon I nearly stood on a snake. I took a step back, as you would, and the snake just lay there, soaking up the sun. Only when I reached for my phone did the, clearly camera shy snake, slither away. This was one occasion when walking in sandals and bare feet, may not have been to my advantage ;-) "The lighter the load, the easier the way" I have found the walking easy enough for the most part, although when I stopped at this beautiful bar in a little village on the second day for a lunch of Tortilla and beer, I could hardly stand up afterwards, my legs were so stiff. Now, I can hardly wait to get going in the mornings, and when I set out at first, the rucksack is barely noticeable on my back. By the end of the day though, it is weighing a lot more, (it seems), and I am very happy when I find a beautiful campsite, or reach the aubergue. My plan was to camp the whole time, but the nights are cold, and I foolishly bought too light a sleeping bag. Also, now that I have left the coast, and there is no sea to serve as my bath, I do need an odd shower now and then. As I walk, I am gathering all sorts of food along the way. The paths are littered with Chestnuts. The first couple of days, I was loading my pockets with them, along with apples and even a head of corn which I carried a whole day, only to discover that there was no way my little solid fuel stove was going to be able to cook it. I have wisened up a bit since then, emptied my pockets, and live very well from chestnuts, walnuts, figs, and apples, that one can find all along the way. Ode to a Chestnut on the ground From bristly foliage you fell complete, polished wood, gleaming mahogany, as perfect as a violin newly born of the treetops, that falling offers its sealed-in gifts, the hidden sweetness that grew in secret amid birds and leaves, a model of form, kin to wood and flour, an oval instrument that holds within it intact delight, an edible rose. In the heights you abandoned the sea-urchin burr that parted its spines in the light of the chestnut tree; through that slit you glimpsed the world, birds bursting with syllables, starry dew below, the heads of boys and girls, grasses stirring restlessly, smoke rising, rising. You made your decision, chestnut, and leaped to earth, burnished and ready, firm and smooth as the small breasts of the islands of America. You fell, you struck the ground, but nothing happened, the grass still stirred, the old chestnut sighed with the mouths of a forest of trees, a red leaf of autumn fell, resolutely, the hours marched on across the earth. Because you are only a seed, chestnut tree, autumn, earth, water, heights, silence prepared the germ, the floury density, the maternal eyelids that buried will again open toward the heights the simple majesty of foliage, the dark damp plan of new roots, the ancient but new dimensions of another chestnut tree in the earth. Pablo Neruda Sometimes people leave presents for us Peregrinos, on the walls along the road. One morning there was a whole box of tomatos. Well perhaps someone had just put it down for a minute, but I pocketed one anyway. There are apple trees everywhere, and they are delicious. I offered one to a severe looking elderly French woman as I passed, but she told me they were for cider and would give me belly ache....well I have eaten a lot, and my belly is fine. The days fly by I am supposed to be thinking a bit about my future, but I am more of a dreamer than a thinker, and most of my thinking tends to be on more mundane things, like keeping an eye on where I am going, where I am putting my feet, where will I stay the night, what will I eat, why do people drink Budweiser, when do you use an apostrophe, why is popular culture popular, and why does a woodpecker peck wood? The way is well marked with yellow arrows, and beautiful yellow scallop shell signs, like sunshine lighting the route. The rays of the shell are meant to represent the many paths to Santiago. Of course there are a lot of metaphors in this whole Camino thing. There are as many ways as there are people. True of course of the way to Santiago, and the way we live our lives. I think the way to Santiago is better signposted and easier to find than the way to wherever it is we are going in our lives. The EU seem to have given some money to improve the paths, and also to put up giant, shiny, ugly signs, in completely useless places. This was in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. This man was wheeling beans that his wife was picking in the fields back to the farm to dry. I can´t help comparing the work this elderly couple are doing, with the work of some overpaid bureaucrat in Brussels, who randomly picked a few spots on a map to put up these monstrosities, before heading out for his prawn baguette, and glass of champagne. To make matters worse, they put the scallop shell facing in any old direction, whilst the old signs in Asturias always have the base of the shell facing in the direction you need to go. The cattle have horns here? They look so beautiful. One would have thought that EU rules would be the same everywhere. One type is a breed native to Cantabria called Tudanca cows nearly all have bells around their necks. Some where big bass bells, others smaller, and some smaller again. As in life, it is not always the bull who has the biggest bell. Together they make beautiful music, not quite as harmonious as Froukjes bell group, but lovely all the same. The nights that I slept in an Albuergue, the night time music also has a complete orchestra, although I wouldn't describe it as beautiful, with grunts and snores and air being released from every orifice. I can imagine (if it hasn't been done already), someone composing a piece for the Crash ensemble called something like "Air in an Albuergue". One can imagine the Tuba, Bassoon and other instruments in the wind section having a big part. The Camino passes a lot of churches, as you would expect. Most have a similar architecture with a simple bell tower on the front. Long ago, the bells served as an important messaging system for the local communities. There were bells for festivals, funerals, and prayers. There was a tune used to alert you if it was a day you could only eat fish, and there was even a bell to alert the bell ringers! Back when people didn’t have access to time on their wrist, people relied on the bells to tell them the time. If they told their wife they were going out to tend to the crops and they’d be back at 5PM for dinner, then how did they know it was 5PM? The bells were a very large wristwatch in a way. They ring on the hour to notify you of the time, but they also repeat in 2 minutes. Essentially, the first set of rings is the ‘warning shot’ which alerts everyone. The repeating is a way to honor the old system of communication. If they were out washing in the river or working in the fields and they heard the bells in the distance and started counting them – they might not have known if they heard the first few rings or not. So the rings were repeated 2 minutes later so that everyone was prepared to count the rings and know the time. Counting the number of rings was also important when it came to communicating funerals. If the funeral bell rang 27 times it meant that a man had passed away, and it was rung 18 time for a female. It had to be a different enough number so that people could differentiate if they once again potentially didn’t hear the first few initial rings. I love these ´Horreos´ that one sees everywhere, around North Western Spain. They are simple ingenious grain stores, that stand on pillars, mainly of stone, with a large flat stone on top that stops rodents climbing up....I want to build one some day. The Cactus in front is Opuntia , where the delicious Cactus Figs, Thomas and Rose, and Adel, are trying to sell you I love this beautiful rural railway station Spain was invaded by the Moors (Berbers from North Africa) in 711 The reins of their (Moors) horses were as fire, their faces black as pitch, their eyes shone like burning candles, their horses were swift as leopards and the riders fiercer than a wolf in a sheepfold at night At that time Spain was ruled by Germans Asturians are very proud that they were never conquered, and claim that since it was from there that the battle to reclaim Spain began, all Spanish people are in fact Asturians A lot of interesting 'facts' here: http://www.blackhistorystudies.com/resources/resources/15-facts-on-the-moors-in-spain/ The architecture in Cantabria was typically Spanish. Beautiful, interestingly shaped houses, with lovely round red tile rooves, and white or orange walls. I would love to paint our house bright orange, but I am having difficulties persuading my family. Here in the border area between Asturias and Galicia, the houses tend to be made of grey stone, are square blocks and have grey slate rooves. The slates seem to be just layed on higgledy piggledy. So my travels continue tomorrow, and who knows what the day will bring. As Antonio Machado says, paths are made by walking. Each of us has our own way, and even the tiniest decisions determine how our journey will be. Choose wisely on your path. Be kind to those you meet along the way. And never forget to smile. Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing back one sees the path that will never be walked again

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